Chapter Fifty-Two: It's a Pink, Pink, Pink, Pink World
The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions
Chapter Fifty-Two – It’s a Pink, Pink, Pink, Pink World
Special thanks to Vimbert, theworstwriter, and Warden for editing
Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art
“Miss Harmony, pegasus agent of the Canterlotlian Clerk, the City of Dredgemane demands that you come and answer for your criminal sins committed against the sovereignty of the Refuge of Gultophine!”
Bishop Breathstar's voice boomed across the steep, granite walls surrounding Stonehaven. Several glinting polearms sliced the air as guards rushed up and formed a phalanx ahead of the towering priest. The wagon holding Brevis grinded to a halt. Deacon Dawnhoof rushed over and placed a gentle hoof on the retching, coughing mule's shoulder as the militia erected a solid line of torches before the stone steps of the sanitarium. Overseer Sladeburn and Mayor Haymane hung in the shadows that separated the burning head of the procession from the crowd of anxious, breathless onlookers forming a thick sea behind. An eerie hush wafted over the bustling masses, penetrated solely by the town priest's rumbling voice.
“In the holy name of Gultophine—by the power of her Spirit that binds us along the providential stream of life—I command you to show your face, to surrender your tools of heathen construction, and to expose your wicked allies so that all of you may face your judgment with a modicum of grace before we have to resort to drastic action!”
The shouting words echoed across the broad, stone steps of the sanitarium. When the noise cleared, the entrance remained barren. The flickering of torchlights did nothing to summon Breathstar's nemesis out from hiding. The Bishop merely frowned, casting an exasperated glance aside at a shrugging Sladeburn.
In the meantime, Brevis coughed wildly, weathering a painful spasm through his bleeding body. Deacon Dawnhoof braced him with a pair of gentle hooves, not flinching for a second from the scarlet stains gracing him. “Dear soul...” the young unicorn murmured in a hushed breath beneath the twice-hushed crowd. “I am sorry.” He gulped and closed his twitching eyes to the impeding madness. “I am so, so sorry for all of this...”
“S-sorry...?” Brevis hissed through broken teeth. He shakily lifted his bruised face until it was level with Dawnhoof's. “D-don't... ever b-be sorry...”
“Sir...?” Dawnhoof blinked confusedly.
Brevis jerked a shivering hoof up and gripped the edge of Dawnhoof's robe. Sputtering, he produced a shattered smile. “Be a m-monarch butterfly... Hckkt-BraHa!”
The young unicorn stared confusedly at him. He was shaken out of his contemplation once Breathstar's booming voice resumed:
“I shall give you one last warning!” The priest paced icily before the rows of torches. The rainbow stains were beginning to melt away from his otherwise immaculate, pale coat. “If you do not remove yourself from that place of refuge, if you do not cease tainting the poor children with your pagan presence, then I shall be forced to send the entirety of Dredgemane's militia after you! One pegasus with an unearthly bag of tricks isn't enough to withstand the sheer volume of Gultophine's righteous anger! If you won't pay your respect to the spirit of this town, then you will pay with your life!”
“Breathstar—!” Haymane rolled forward, hissing.
The priest held a hoof up, squinting steadily towards the sanitarium. There was no movement, not even a stir. With a flaring of his nostrils, he growled, “Very well.” He turned towards the many guards standing beside him. “Be firm, be righteous, but above all else be swift.”
“Yes, Bishop.” The captain of the guards slid a helmet over his mane and slapped his polearm against the Grave of Consus. “Soldiers of Dredgemane—!”
“Bishop, cease this madness!” Haymane rolled around in front of the phalanx. “There must be another way! Stonehaven is full of weak and defenseless patients!”
“—retrieve the pegasus and her zebra conspirator at all cost!”
“Long ago, Mayor, you and I established the hospital as a refuge for the infirmed bodies of our citizens.” The Bishop cooly glanced down at the elder. “Right now, we should be rejoicing that their souls have been sanctified by Gultophine's Spirit, as I so nurtured yours long ago.”
“Counselor, souls and bodies deserve rest all the same.” Haymane's eyes narrowed. “I can speak for myself in both respects, but when you send an army to raid that hospital, can you speak for them?”
The Bishop barely inhaled before replying with a nod, “But of course. I am Gultophine's Intercessor.” He motioned towards the guards. “Carry forth!”
Haymane stared in horror as the Mayor's own militia marched past him. With polearms sharply glinting, they approached the granite steps of Stonehaven. Just as they broke into an armor-rattling gallop...
Three rainbow shadows glided down and landed at the base of the steps. A huge gasp flew through the crowd. The guards jerked back and formed a solid wall of defense, brandishing their many blades and net guns. From a distance, an enraged Sladeburn grinded his hoof against the earth while a twitching Breathstar stared disbelievingly.
The three Royal Grand Bivs formed a flimsy line, acting as the last barrier between the entirety of Dredgemane and the lone granite hospital looming behind them. With ruby goggles glinting, they reflected a sea of torchlight and faces. Their stance was unwavering.
“Well, sugahs,” one Biv slurred. She cracked the joints in her neck and tightened her forward limb muscles. “I never wanted to rope you into something like this. Still, it's best to end the dance show with a bang, if we have to.”
“Blinkaphine...” another voice murmured as a second Biv glanced at the third. “Whatever happens, I just want you to know that I love you.”
The third nodded, bracing a wave of trembles.
“Think of Pinkamena...” The second flung her cloak out and produced a sea of multicolored throwing knives. “Think of her smile.”
The other two Bivs followed suit. The three figures crouched in threatening fashion before the torchlit guards, ready to spring at a moment's scream. Bishop Breathstar suddenly galloped up to the thick of the blood-pulsing standoff and shouted.
“Now! While you have the chance! Strike the Bivs down and end this town's madness once and for all—!” But even as Breathstar said those words, his face melted. A pair of twitching eyes exploded across his pale frame and the priest stumbled backwards as if struck by a cannonball to the chest.
Haymane squinted curiously at him. The Mayor saw the many guards of the forward line lowering their weapons in shock. A nervous murmur bled through the gathered masses of Dredgemaners with no less marvel. Wheeling about, Haymane feasted his eyes upon the entrance to Stonehaven in time to see a thick crowd of ponies, both the young and the old, filing out and standing at the top of the steep, granite steps.
Dawnhoof slowly stood up straight, his horn glistening with new life in the shine of so many torches. Brevis glanced over and squinted one good eye. The mule easily bore a smile that could go on forever, even if it had to bleed forever.
The three Royal Grand Bivs turned and glanced over their multicolored flanks as the entire contents of Stonehaven spilled out like ghosts emerging from a forsaken grave. Pinkie Pie carried three bright-eyed foals on her backside at once. Zecora stood, piercing the gathered crowd with a hard blue stare. Vimbert and Angel Cake stood along the sides of a thick stream of woken patients in white. Finally, the last pony appeared with the machine stretched across her wings, and gathered around her was a solid sea of very quiet, very scared, but very healthy children.
Harmony gulped. The green tongues of flames tickling her soul was suddenly the least of her concerns as she stared dead-center into the extinct forest of ponydom. For the first time since the lone time traveler had submerged herself into the past, she was no longer a trivial enigma. Every single Equestrian soul was staring at her. She wanted to throw up, but she couldn't afford to tremble at this divine exposure, not now.
The world had become dead silent, as if the Sundering of Consus had just transpired and everypony was waiting for Gultophine to take wing. The eyes of the many foals flitted across the crowd and the crowd gazed back at them. The two tortured halves of Dredgemane came together across an abysmal distance. The torchlight was merely an illuminating frame to this delicious art-piece that was evolving before the whole of them.
In the midst of this prolonged silence, it was Overseer Sladeburn's restlessness that took over. He stormed angrily to Breathstar's side and snarled at him. “I do not understand! What is going on?! Why haven't your ponies followed through with their orders?!”
“I...” Breathstar stammered. He was not awestruck so much as he was panicking. “I-I told... th-them...”
“Confound it, Breathstar! These ponies are your holy soldiers! Every single one of them is in your control, so control them—”
“S-Silversprout?” one of the guards suddenly stammered.
Sladeburn and Breathstar reeled about to witness one of the militia ponies completely dropping his polearm, netgun, and helmet. The young pony marched forward, directly out of line, and stared wide-eyed at the line of foals beside Harmony and her anchor.
“Elektra alive! Little bro, is that you?!”
One of the tiny coats atop Pinkie Pie gasped and hopped down with a beaming smile. “Bronzestar!” He scampered down the granite steps, ushered by a flock of giggles. “Bronzestar! Look at me! Look at me!”
“Oh Silversprout...” The guard smiled painfully and lurched ahead with a hoof outstretched. “I thought you were a goner! Praise Gultophine—” A pale hoof slammed across the back of the guard's head, sending the grunting pony to the ground.
Harmony jerked with a frown.
The coat gasped, his little eyes wide. “Bronzestar! Brother—!” He made to dash over to him but one of the Bivs protectively held the child back.
Bishop Breathstar seethed, standing above the groaning guard with a limb raised. He glared up at the line of Stonehaven life and pointed at them, spitting, “Witchcraft!”
The air roared with angry thunder once more. The guards and citizens of Dredgemane stirred nervously amidst a quagmire of murmurs as the Church of Gultophine's preacher continued:
“The pegasus and her zebra cohort have infected the heart of Dredgemane's most precious lives with voodoo and witchcraft!” Breathstar paced before the torches and gestured wildly towards the granite steps of Stonehaven. His eyes effortlessly pierced the trembling countenance of the thousands of eyes gazing from afar. “It is not Gultophine's Spirit that has brought the shuffling bodies of our loved ones here! See how they cower and tremble in the night?! I tell you—they have exchanged the afflictions of Immolatia and insanity for a pestilence of the soul! For it was these outsiders, these damnable wolves in sheep's clothing who have used the very night of Gultophine's Harvest as a cover to usurp all that we hold dear!”
Brevis winced while Dawnhoof breathlessly trembled. Overseer Sladeburn managed a smirk and folded his front forelimbs while Haymane calmly listened throughout the entire, impromptu sermon.
“Do you not see how they have allied themselves with those who would don the sacrilegious and sociopathic image of the Royal Grand Biv?! Can you not fathom how they have turned the blessed exorcism of Gultophine's bonfire into a plebeian sideshow attraction to distract us from our true calling?! This entire night has been a molestation of all that has ever been sacred and holy in this Refuge of Gultophine, in this land carved out of the body of our fallen Forefather Consus! These are not saviors or practitioners of medicine, my dear children. No—they are heretics! And they have dirtied this town, dirtied this night, and dirtied the blessed souls of those infants who stand before us with the tools of heresy!”
The crowd stirred into a louder, hotter cacophony of anxious voices as Breathstar spun about and passionately lifted the starry roof off the night like a reverse Onyx Eclipse.
“My whole life I have dedicated myself to Gultophine's Spirit! But these interlopers exist outside of the stream of progress that makes our holy town so sublime! Behold, even now they seek to drag us out of the stream with them into a great and impenetrable darkness that knows nothing of the warm and blessing wings of our Alicorn Sister! It may look like they have given us life, but it is an illusion! It is a facade, a transient trick of smoke and mirrors afforded by the taint they wield with their pagan hooves! Do not give in to their deceit! They have already taken this town's children! If we let them, they will take away our lives, our decency, our progress!”
The crowd's volume had risen to match that of Breathstar's booming words. A surging sea of confusion and fear splashed together to form anger. Soon the many Dredgemaners were shouting, growling, demanding answers.
Nurse Angel shivered nervously along with the many families of Stonehaven. Vimbert merely closed his eyes in shame. Pinkie Pie tossed a nervous glance aside at Harmony.
The pegasus was wincing. She fought a waterfall of flaming emerald to dredge forth a breath of deeply-seeded fury. When her eyes finally widened, they appeared to be scarlet, and not amber, if even for a second. “Do you want to know what this witchcraft is?!” she shouted.
The crowd shouted back. The whole of Dredgemane had become a sea of trolls. Stonehaven was a tiny cellar in the middle of desecrated apple orchards, and the last pony landed her hooves to the wounded earth violently in between the torches.
“I said, do you want to know what this is?!” She flipped her wings and tossed the machine into her grasp.
“Har-Har, watch out with Alex—” Pinkie Pie reached over.
Harmony viciously shrugged her off and held the machine up high before the gaping crowd. “I built this! I built this out of the same materials that you have spent your goddess-forsaken lives mining out of this murderous landscape! The very same metals your countless miners have died for went into this thing! The fluid of local hydras became its blood! The jewel of your neighbors sparked it to life! The very bones of Consus gave it animation! This is a miracle of engineering, as you are engineers, as all of us are engineers of life, employing the resources that the Goddesses granted us by their wisdom! By Celestia's intelligence, I designed this machine! By Elektra's ingenuity, I sculpted it into being! By Luna's tenacity, I gathered the last of the ingredients and by Gultophine's grace I wielded it to drag infernite out of the lungs of children who had been carelessly left to their somber fate by the likes of the same power-hungry moron who now struggles to keep a hoof-hold of all of you this very instant!”
The crowd murmured. Bishop Breathstar frowned and opened his mouth to retort—
Harmony wasn't finished. “These foals are healed! They are cured of Immolatia! There isn't a single gram of infernite left inside of them! What's more, those of them who have parents—their families are cured! They were never suffering from the supposed madness that imprisoned them here in Haymane's paranoid lockbox! They were victims of depression and defeat—Just like all of you!”
The Dredgemaners rumbled in shock and disapproval.
Harmony nevertheless continued. “Just like all of you! You had it in you to heal these children all along, just like you had it in you to heal yourselves! Where I come from, Gultophine's Spirit is an inspirational thing. But that's simply what it is! An inspiration! I can allow the thought of the Goddess of Life to motivate me, but I cannot expect her wings to carry me! I have long learned to teach myself how to fly, for the very wings on my body are as much a blessing of the gods as any other part of me!”
The copper pegasus balanced the machine back onto her copper wings and gestured to the parallel granite walls of that town.
“Is it so different here?! Huh?! Is it so different here, in the Grave of Consus, where so many things died in the First Age that even today we are stumbling to find ourselves in the shadows of the corpses left behind?! Dredgemaners, you and I have something in common! We are all alone! We have always been alone and always will be! We are as alone in all of our numbers as we will be when... when...” She hissed and fought the claws of Spike's breath. “...When there will only be one of us left to carry on the fragile breath of magic.” The last pony gulped painfully and continued. “I'm sorry if I upset the regimental balance and order of your amazing town. I want you to know that I did it for a reason. I saw suffering. I identified with it. Then I found it was my job—as a living and breathing pony—to find a way to end that suffering! Blessed by Gultophine or not, life is short and life is precious! The light that is granted us is a beautiful thing, for it is so fragile, and it will not last forever! Why...” She clenched her eyes shut and hissed. “Please, Entropa, Why...” She graced the crowd with her quivering ambers once again. “...Must we live as we die, forever sunken in shadow?”
Breathstar finally stabbed his voice in before any of Harmony's words could hold sway. “Your subjective and ridiculous dogma is nothing but poetic nonsense! Dredgemane has progressed for centuries before you came along! Now you think to excuse your anarchist uprising by invoking the names of the Alicorn Sisters?! We should have spared the bonfires of Gultophine's Harvest and built a burning stake for you, blasphemous child!”
The Bishop's passionate voice matched the fever pitch of the crowd far more expertly than the last pony's ever could. The roars became deafening as several thousand Dredgemaners flung their anger, their confusion, and their pain like stones at the orphan of time.
The last pony twitched in the torchlight as she received the full brunt of their anguish. Deep down, she knew that she was a pariah, built out of the flames of the Cataclysm. In all of her lonely years, this truth only filled her with sadness. Now, she was being filled with something else. There was no longer a fragile shred left in her mind that could play Octavia's strings to this blistering ugliness, for these creatures could never fill the beautiful concert halls of her fitful dreams, for they were not ponies, they were hardly even honorable enough to be called trolls.
They were a herd, and Scootaloo suddenly didn't want to be any part of it.
“Fine...” She snarled, something that daringly pierced the volume of shouts spitting back at her. “If that's the way it's gonna be...” Her eyes flamed between green and amber as she raised the machine once more like an onyx silhouette against the starlight above. “You want to live your lives dead? So be it! Have your misery and your contempt and your superstitious excuses! But if you so much as want a solution...” Harmony slammed the device down into the Equestrian Earth, spilling it into a hundred shattering, flaming pieces. “...Build it yourselves!”
The crowd hushed to a nervous murmur as the last pony heaved and shook venomously before them, fueled by an entire Fourth Age's worth of hate.
“I thought ponydom was worth honoring. I thought that ponies were creatures of distinction who knew hope and how to preserve hope. I thought there was magic and love and contentment to be had in the grand, galloping sea of you, but I was wrong. I can't believe a part of me actually thought that I could save you—if even for a bleeding moment. No creature that lives life under the comfort of blindness deserves saving. So if you want to die? Then die! Each and every one of you can die! I don't friggin' care anymore, and I hate myself for ever having cared! But mark my words: when all is said and done, there won't be a funeral for the likes of you. There won't even be a friggin' eulogy! I'll see to it!”
With that, Harmony spun from the stunned equines like so many flakes of ashes. She marched firmly, swiftly towards the far side of the Stonehaven steps.
An orange hoof made a desperate grab for her. “Just where are you going—?”
Harmony flung Vimbert's grip off with a snarl. “Away. Forever.” Scootaloo was done, done with the experiment, done with tears, done with her life and theirs. She was the end of ponies, nothing more. “I'm friggin' finished. It's all hopeless. It always was.” She had only to think of an excuse to give Spike, and then she would once again be a scavenger in the dim haze of eternal twilight, her only friend.
She was just about to stretch her wings out and fly beyond the length of her green flaming anchorage... when a shrill sound warmly filled the air. The last pony couldn't help it. She turned around. She stared back. When she did, she felt just as perplexed as the very second she saw the Mayor of Ponyville doused in egg yolk.
Pinkie Pie was laughing, laughing merrily. She stood on the edge of Stonehaven's steps, on the precipice of a great fall, as she doubled over with insane waves upon waves of giggles, slapping a pink knee and cackling even more.
The entire town of Dredgemane witnessed Quarrington's daughter breathe her hysterical outburst. Brevis curiously craned his neck. Haymane furrowed his brow. An extremely exasperated Breathstar tapped, tapped, tapped his hoof to the ground and finally tossed his forelimbs. “My dear child, just what are you laughing at?”
“Heeheeheehee!” She snorted, giggled, and pointed a bright pink hoof. She hiccuped and gasped and sputtered for a breath amidst her endless chortles, like trying to pierce a smile that was still going on forever and ever since the night that a little foal saw the bright shinies. “Heeheehee... Haa-Haa!” She finally opened her thin blue eyes, grinning wide. “Y-you! All of you! Snkkkt—Hahahahaha!”
Harmony blinked. She glanced confusedly at Zecora and the Royal Grand Bivs and received stares that were just as blank.
“Hahahahaha!” Pinkie Pie jostled and bounced in place, grinning wide as she digested the entirety of the Grave of Consus and all the bodies lying within. “You stand there and look a gift horse in the face and stomp all over it like bunch of nasty weeds?! And to think that Daddy sent me to Ponyville so he could have peace! Hahahaha! You are all clowns! Heeheehee... Clowns! Buffoons! All of you! You're all the best in entertainment! The world's biggest punchline! Heeheeheehee!”
Breathstar groaned. He face-hoofed and glanced lethargically over his shoulder. “Has anypony seen Quarrington—?”
“And you wanna know why?! Hahahaha!” Pinkie Pie slapped her knee again and doubled-over in her barreling waves of cackles. She took a deep breath and smiled wider and wider. “Because Dredgemane is a joke! It's the biggest joke! It's the jokiest jokeriffic king of jokes! It always has been! Heeheehee—” She briefly planted a hoof over her lips and waved her forelimbs in front of her. “Snkkkt—Okayokayokay! Wait until you hear this.” She took a gasping breath. “So there's this God, you see, the Father of all things! He takes a nasty kerplunk into the land that he and Epona built! Nyeaaaarrrrr—Splat! He dies, you see?! His daughter loves him so much that she blesses his grave with her spirit of life, and do you know what happened?! For thousands of years, ponies living in that same place have forgotten what it means to be happy! Hahahahaha—They can't even smile when—snkkt—when their very own kids are hoofed over to them, wiped clean of all their nasty sickness! Gaah-Hahaha! They can't even love their own kids, because they're so grumpy! Heeheehee!”
Harmony's wings lowered limply to her side. With pursed lips, she turned softly about and gazed at her anchor in a new light.
Pinkie was laughing, Pinkie was smiling, but her face was blanketed with tears, enough to fill the trenches twice over. She giggled and she cackled and she said, “Don't you get it?! You're all clowns! You have to be! Only a clown would extend a joke like this for so long! Only a clown would think that what the Bivs do are pranks when this whole town has been one for years! Hahahah—I wasn't sent to Ponyville because I was insane! I went there because you all were! Heeheehee! I wanted to live, and nopony who lives in Dredgemane is ever alive! You don't want to be!” She laughed and hiccuped and laughed and hiccuped again. Her smile was very slowly, very painfully starting to look more and more like a grimace. “You d-don't want to laugh and smile and d-dance in the light. You want to watch your children t-turn to ashes! You want to call rainbows ugly things and m-make singing illegal! You want to wear clothes th-that hide how beautiful you all are and wait for d-death to tie the ribbon. You are clowns! Clowns who d-don't know when it's time to walk offstage. I tr-tried to show you new tricks. For years, I c-came back over and over again and tried. Even... Even after Cl-Clyde went away, I tr-tried... Because a p-pony has t-to try. Why are we alive if n-not to try... to... t-to...” Her laughter had melted into cold hyperventilation as she fell on her haunches, her face contorting exhaustedly like she was giving birth to a hidden sob that had always been there for countless years.
Any warmth in the torchlit air had been sucked away by the immeasurably huge vacuum left by Pinkie Pie's faded smile. With sisterly grace, two of the Bivs sashayed up the steps. Unmasking, Inkessa shook her gray mane loose, smiled dearly, and nuzzled the small of Pinkie's neck. A mute Blinkaphine was close behind, clutching to the far side of the middle child with a gentle hug. Pinkie gulped, panted, and hung on the weight of her siblings, her moist eyes locked onto a gray, gray splotch of earth hovering beneath everypony, immersed in the Grave of Consus, the place that had foaled her—Dredgemane's reverse-joke.
Brevis had been quiet the whole time, bravely bearing a smile amidst his blood as Pinkie bore a grimace amidst her tears. When he calmly opened his one good eye, he bore witness—as every soul in the trenches bore witness—to a striped equine marching halfway down the steps of Stonehaven.
“My dear Mayor Haymane,” Zecora spoke to the leader of the town. Her blue eyes entreated him. “Do you know what is truly insane?”
Haymane glanced up at her. His two remaining limbs were still quivering from the exclamations of Quarrington's daughter.
Zecora uttered before the torchlight, “Goddesses and Shadows made us with their breaths. They did this knowing full well the time of our deaths. All of ponydom began through the progress of creation, and yet this town would rather drown itself in cremation. If you truly wish to abide by Gultophine's Spirit, is it not best that you take it... and live it?”
“I have tried living it, dear child,” Haymane murmured, his body once more awash in the gray miasma of that town, hanging off his battered body like so many lonely years. “I respect Gultophine's Spirit for its purpose. I cannot pretend to expect any joy...”
“You are wrong, old friend,” a raspy voice uttered from behind.
Citizens, guards, and gasping ponies parted ways in a murmur of astonishment as Quarrington Pie walked up from the thick of the crowd. He led a frail equine figure by the hoof. Trotting into the torchlight, it turned out to be his wife, Pearl Fleece Pie. Her coat was still missing in several spots and her mane was a haggard mess. Still, she was very much alive, and her sea blue eyes glistened in a color that dared the nearby torches to extinguish themselves.
“Where there is life...” Quarrington spoke. He spoke before Haymane, before the Council, and before the stars. “...There is opportunity. Opportunity is not all about progress. It is about joy...” The tall stallion smiled, and Haymane positively reeled from it. Quarrington’s snow-white sideburns fluttered in the night as he turned to gaze up at his three daughters atop the stone steps. “For life is short and sweet, so much so that all it can afford to be is joy. There simply is no room for anything else. For the longest time, I choked myself of joy. It was because I...” He shuddered, gulped, then exhaled. “I was punishing myself, Haymane, for things that were far beyond my control, for loved ones I had lost. And I think our delightful town has been doing that for so long. We've been punishing ourselves for not being able to rise beyond so much of our sorrow in the past, as if it's a crime to try and transcend ourselves. But so long as we're walking this earth that Elektra has carved for us, don't we owe it to ourselves to try? Pinkamena has tried. She has tried all her life, even when she had more than death trying to drown her out...” His smile took on a weak, shameful color. “She had us, and all of our embarrassingly trite baggage. And what became of my daughter's random antics?” Quarrington leaned over and stifled a crackle in his voice by nuzzling his wife's neck. “My family now has a second chance. We all can have second chances... and thirds... and fourths... and infinite... so long as we keep trying, like Pinkamena...”
“Beloved...” Mrs. Pie murmured to her husband and kissed him on the cheek. On wobbly hooves, she stepped towards the Mayor. “Hello, Haymane. It's been a long time.”
Haymane exhaled sharply, falling back on his squeaking wheels. “P-Pearl...?” He gulped. “After all this time, you are h-healed...?”
“I was only sick on the outside, Haymane.” She smiled and stared deep into the eyes of a long-time companion. “I think it's finally time that you let yourself be healed on the inside, old friend.”
The Mayor's jaw quivered. He gazed all around him, at the sea of lifelessly dressed villagers, at the teenage guards trembling under heavy strips of armor, at the bright and colorless torches, then at the many, many foals of Stonehaven staring under the glint of razor-sharp polearms. The Mayor brought a hoof up to his coat and felt the frame of a family picture in his pocket. It suddenly weighed more than an entire year's worth of dredged arcanium.
“Hail Gultophine,” the stallion penitently murmured as a tear rolled down his aged cheek. “What have I done...?”
“The better question, Haymane...” Pearl planted a hoof on the trembling elder's shoulder. “Is what can you do?” She smiled at her husband, then towards the sight of Stonehaven.
Somewhere, between the warm embrace of her sisters and the loving gaze of her mother, a teary-eyed Pinkie Pie found her smile again. Several steps below, the last Biv unmasked. Pepper Plots smirked and patted the little colt beside her on his back. Breathless, the foal dashed over to the guard who was lying on the ground. He nuzzled him with a whimpering cry.
The guard pony looked up, his young face wincing for the last time as he slowly stood on aching limbs. “H-hey, Silversprout. Heh... I got walloped pretty badly back there...”
“I-I know...” The foal giggled. “I saw.” He bit his lip as his eyes watered. “Brother... Can we go home...?”
“Yes.” The young pony knelt before the foal and scooped his sibling up in trembling forelimbs. “Yes, little bro. We can go finally go home...”
A new murmur rose up through the thick crowd. This time, it was devoid of the angry passion and confusion that had tossed it into a mental stampede just minutes before. The sensation was like poison in Bishop Breathstar's ears. The panicky-eyed unicorn panted and seethed as he saw the town slipping away from underneath him like a filthy, silken robe.
“No...” The priest snarled. He glanced all around until his gaze fell upon the polearm that the young guard had dropped. “No, this is all wrong!” He picked the glinting weapon up and raised it high above the two brothers' heads. “Gultophine's Spirit must not allow this absurdity to—”
A bright, golden glow suddenly encased the hulking weapon in his gasp. Breathstar gasped in shock as the polearm flew from his hooves, shattered into metallurgical bits, and slammed across his chest like a sea of shrapnel, knocking him like a punching bag to the ground.
“Oooof!” Breathstar fell down before a series of hooves. He glanced up in fitful trembles.
Deacon Dawnhoof stood, frowning, his horn glowing with bright fury. “That is not Gultophine's Spirit! That is not how we deal with our brothers and sisters in the stream of life! It never was!”
“You...” Breathstar hissed and struggled to get back onto his hooves. “You worthless, thankless, childish imbecile! You dare talk to me like—?!”
This time, it was the sheer force of Dawnhoof's shouting voice that flung Breathstar to the ground. “I don't care who you are or what I am! Gultophine's Spirit is something of love, of prosperity, of dedication to the prolonging of life in all of its many shapes and forms!”
Overseer Sladeburn marched over with a frown. “Now see here, kid—” His dark eyes bulged as the very horseshoes on his feet flew out from under him in a wave of bright telekinesis.
“And you!” Dawnhoof pointed with a righteous glare, pointing a glowing horn in the dark horse's direction. “You bring shame and malevolence to the Grave of Consus! This is a holy site, marked by as much triumph as tragedy! When you spill blood here, you spill the very essence of your soul for the vermin of this world to devour from underneath you! It is written in the Chronicles, 'To live in hatred is to live in shame!' We have all been ashamed of the Grave of Consus for far too long! This beautiful land should be a symbol of all that is great and wonderful in life, that which gives us purpose and merriment—like the full moon or a dazzling rainbow! I swear, by all of the strength that Gultophine has invested in me, I shall stand by and leave this City to your malevolence and destruction no further!”
The crowd stirred to a new level of excitement. In spite of this, Sladeburn growled. “Oh what a dashing speech!” He spat. “Stupid brat! I'm the source of this blasted town's progress! It's because of me that the mines have pumped out enough raw materials to keep the Dredgemane treasury afloat! Do you seriously—seriously have any idea what I mean to this place—?!” His eyes twitched as he suddenly stumbled back from a dark shadow—darker than him—hanging over his trembling form.
Mister Irontail leered intimidatingly before the Overseer. He was flanked by several other, burly workhorses, many of them bearing the old wounds of mine accidents as they now brandished frowns. The bushy-bearded blacksmith grinded his hoof into the granite floor of the trench and sneered, “I think we all have a good idea what you mean to this place. And I think we're about to remind you of all the ponies you let die to get your quota met.”
“You think I haven't seen this coming?” Sladeburn growled, frowning up at them. “Do your worst, you filthy, thankless, bleeding hearts!”
Mister Irontail snarled and raised a hoof to slam over Sladeburn's neck—
“No!” A bruised, blue figure suddenly slid protectively in front of the Overseer. Waving blood-stained forelimbs bound in shackles, a heaving, wincing Brevis stared Irontail down with one good eye. He gulped, then hissed, “Do not be animals! Do not be the same herd that he has marched you into being, only galloping at the same speed but in a different direction!”
Sladeburn blinked and snarled. “What's this stupid bum going on about—?!” A ribbon of rainbow-colored confetti suddenly flew out of nowhere and wrapped over his hissing mouth. “Mmmff-Mmmff!”
Over by the steps of Stonehaven, Pepper Plots blew the smoke clean from the barrel of a party cannon, twirled it, and smirked the mule's way. “Limelight's all yours, sugah.”
“I know what you all need!” Brevis lurched on two limbs, waving his shackles underneath his cloak as he beheld the blossoming crowd. “I know what burns inside of you—You are all good Equestrians just like goodly Brevis and we all want the light. But more than that, we all wish to make the light! To pierce knowledge and joy into each other's souls, instead of blades or poison! If you must stampede... then stampede downhill! Fall free from the high throne of made-up diseases and made-up shame and go burn your own flames!” He hissed in a wave of pain and fell down.
Dawnhoof rushed over to the street prophet's side and held him up. With a burst of light from his horn, he un-did the mule's shackles.
Free once again, the blue-cloaked bum flung himself eastward, towards downtown. Dawnhoof was there to assist him in his hyperventilating limp. “Follow me! Enter as the herd and come out as a kaleidoscope! Split the solid, boring light that has dominated your souls and find the rainbow that entices us beyond ourselves! F-follow me! Ditch the weight of our oppressors and the oppressors themselves and gallop towards a bright and blistering tomorrow that scares us into hiccuping laughter! It is a place that knows no shadows, and the only graves that exist there are for our decaying fetters and chains! Follow me!”
Dawnhoof and Brevis sliced ecstatically through the crowd, infecting them far faster than Immolatia ever could. In a blood-pumping canter, citizens and guards alike dropped what they were doing, stopped saying what they were saying, stopped wasting what they were wasting and flung themselves away from the empty husk of Stonehaven without thought, without weight, without hesitation.
Pinkie Pie suddenly bounded forward, as if new life was breathed back into her at the tail-end of her mentor's haggard exclamations. Pepper Plots and the pink mare's sisters were tight on her bouncing tail. It took Harmony a few blinking seconds to awake to the fact that she had to be as well. She ditched her impulse to fly away along with the faint fumes of green in her peripheral as she trotted swiftly and steadily after her anchor. A striped zebra and a shuffling janitor were not far behind, ushering along with them a sea of foals, families, and futures.
Lingering behind, just as numb as Breathstar and Sladeburn but hardly as lifeless, a mesmerized Haymane hung in the torchlight. The lonely elder shifted on his wheeled haunches, until he realized he wasn't nearly as alone as he thought he was. Gazing aside, he realized that Quarrington and Pearl were still there, were still grinning, were still basking in the Mayor's presence.
Haymane swallowed away the first of many bitter lumps into oblivion as he gently spoke, “I'm not used to seeing you smile, old friend.”
Pearl looked at Quarrington as the stallion gently responded, “I'm not used to wanting to.” Together, the three old ponies stared beyond the granite walls of their town, as the bonfires burned with sudden brightness, stoked by rainbow hues.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dawnhoof carried a limping Brevis through the trenches, ravines, and feather-stalk avenues of the Grave of Consus. With a thick surge of Dredgemane life at their flanks, they reached the Town Square in record time. There, the mule practically tossed himself out of Dawnhoof's grasp and stumbled madly towards the bonfires, his body a putrid and battered silhouette against the prismatically tainted flames. It was beautiful and chaotic and ugly all at once. He reveled in it.
“This is it! This is what lingers beyond the cave of our fears!” He snarled and spat like a madpony as he fought his way through the bloodied cocoon of his cloak and tore it off, exposing his naked blue frame to the flickering hilarity of the night. “Did you hear?! Consus is dead! Not only is his funeral over, but the damnable eulogy has graced its final sentence! There are no more words and there are no more shackles!” He grunted and flung his body with the effort it took to toss his clothing into the bonfire. “There is only madness, a sweet liberating discovery upon this Harvest of good Equestrian souls! Behold, the Fall of Dredgemane!” He collapsed rapturously to the cobblestone, his bloody knees scraping the names of past ghosts as the fire flickered hotter before him. He stood there upon the baptism of heat, basking in it, as if he needed something to make him smile forever.
Deacon Dawnhoof saw it. The invisible strings of yesterday held no more gravity. Bravely, the priest-in-training dragged his hooves over himself, peeled the robe off like an unwanted skin, and revealed a sandstone flank that had been scalded over long ago to hide the talent he was born with. With more strength than even the unicorn realized he had, he tossed the wrappings of his order into the flame while standing back, forever submerged in the substance of it.
The citizens saw it. They saw the flame. They saw the light. In swift succession, they followed suit... by stripping off their suits. Casting off the finely woven apparel of Gultophine's Harvest, they stopped being Dredgemaners and started being ponies. Bright, colorful coats lit the stretches of Town Square, bathing it with more life and pastel glory than even a single firework of the Bivs could ever hope to produce. Mares and stallions, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers—they ripped themselves loose from the town's multiple decades of dreariness, depression, and darkness. They were Equestrians in blood as much as they were in breath, and in sudden, energetic waves of dancing limbs, limbs, limbs—they reveled in it—illuminated by the gasping flashes of the bonfires as it ate the baggage of the Grave of Consus, one article of clothing at a time.
Young schoolponies stripped each other and tossed their belongings into the bonfire, finding something new and precious to them in a sea of hysterical giggles. Old, bearded equines effortlessly flung their rags off and fed it to the embers as they rediscovered smiling mouth muscles that had been long lost to time. As families and friends alike basked in the warmth bathing their Equestrian nakedness, siblings hugged each other, distant cousins shared tears of joyful confusion, and parents balanced cheering foals atop their spines. The fireworks had long died, but the air was alive with more sparks than ever.
Through this gorgeous collapse, this entrenched hysteria on the eve of a horrible Cataclysm, the last pony numbly trotted. Harmony spun lazy circles, gazing with her copper jaw agape as she watched a purgatory transform into a paradise. Not even the imploding chunk of Ponymonium held the gravity of this righteous looniness engulfing her.
Harmony witnessed as Stonehaven patients reunited with their families from the heart of town. They tossed their clothes into the bonfire along with all of their regrets and embraced each other through a shower of tears and laughter. Healed foals and reinvigorated parents trotted side by side down the bright cobblestone lengths of the town square. Children chased each other and danced under the snowing embers and rainbow-colored sparks. There was not a shadow left in the heart of Dredgemane. The bright shinies were everywhere.
There was a loud giggling noise. Harmony glanced over to see several work-mares laughing up a storm as they yanked an apron off of a rotund, ticklish Marble Cake. The large pony fought them off, took control of her flimsy article, and flung it into the fire. Her huge frame teetered towards the blazes with a gasp, and all of her friends grabbed her and hoisted her to safety with a mutual giggle as the bakery ladies intoxicated themselves with a hitherto untasted sweetness.
There was another round of giggles. Harmony looked the other way to see Irontail fumbling to get out of his blacksmith fatigues. Several soot-stained stallions on either side of him laughed and clamped their hooves onto the cobblestone as their bearded companion stumbled like a moron. Finally stripped of his work gear, they all witnessed his tail for the first time and utterly lost it when they saw that it was twice as bushy as his facial hair. He snarled and flung his work duds at them like a leather whip. They scampered away with snorting chuckles and watched as he flung the thing into the breath of fire with a pent-up growl.
Through this delightful insanity, Zecora marched, blinking in wonderment, until several aged ponies whom Harmony recognized as Council members trotted up to the black-and-white equine and ushered her into a circular dance. The Zebraharan shaman blinked, surrendered with a helpless chuckle, and joined their cyclonic canter.
Off to the side, Nurse Angel Cake sat on a curb with a sea of foals surrounding her. She smiled and murmured a series of words to them like an orating teacher, pointing at the various bright sights of the town square as she and the children shared a surging wave of giggles and sighs. She hugged the nearest children closest to her and stargazed with a thankful smile as she murmured words to an exiled goddess.
Harmony gulped a hard lump down her throat as her face balanced itself between a cheer and a sob. She had stumbled upon a singular truth, something more certain and absolute than the constellations. Through twenty-five years of flame and chaos, her rainbow signal had finally found other ponies, had finally touched Equestrian lives, had finally united the last pony with those of her flesh and blood. The citizens of Dredgemane had discovered their hope; it was always inside of them. It only took a joyous embrace of their existence to open themselves up to their essence, when for so many years they—like Scootaloo—had stumbled blindly in the reverse of that blissful mechanic. Such glorious hope blossomed in the hearts of every single pony, so that it burst through their eyes and mouths, like magic. Death couldn't stifle what was burning inside of them, for the Cataclysm was not an omnipotent reaper. The apocalypse was a slave to time. The ponies of Dredgemane, for however many or few blissful weeks afforded them, had time as their benefactor.
“Weeeeeeeee!” Harmony's bright pink anchor bounced by out of nowhere. “Best Gultophine's Harvest everrrrrrrrr!” Pinkie Pie giggled and chortled and flung her brown cloak into the flames, once more becoming the naked princess of Ponyville's Sugarcube Corner.
Harmony glanced over her shoulder at the candy-colored mare, re-energized by her smile, daring to reflect it. A tiny hoof tugged at the future scavenger's tail hairs. Harmony looked forward, blinked, then looked down.
Suntrot's little face beamed up at her. There were no coughs, there was no jaundice. There were only smiles. “For a moment there, it looked like you were gonna leave, Harmony. I wanted to thank you before you did...”
“Thank me?”
“This is an amazing night, and Dredgemane will never be the same,” a deep voice said. Harmony glanced up to see two ponies, Suntrot's parents, standing directly behind the girl and gazing with soft, golden grins in the pegasus' direction. The father continued, his voice rising in blissful octaves with each subsequent second that woke him further from a long, bitter sleep. “Many ponies will talk about what's happened here, but because of Suntrot we all know that it started with you.”
“So thank you...” the mother added with moist eyes. She leaned against her husband and passed a porcelain smile Harmony's way. “Thank you so very much...”
“Uhmmm...” The last pony nervously shifted, glancing behind her at the whooping, hollering, dancing, and clothes-burning citizens. She managed a crooked smile. “You're w-welcome...?”
“Heeheehee!” Suntrot dove forward and nearly shoved Harmony down on her Entropan haunches. “You're the best, Harmony...” The little filly nuzzled the pegasus' chest lovingly. “I wish you could hug me forever...”
Harmony's face broke. She gazed at the lights, the rainbow hues, the delightful madness of that flickering night. It was all far more melodic than any concert hall in the history of Equestria. Her copper hoof clutched the foal to her chest as a tear rolled down her face. “I wish I could too...” A painful shudder, and she closed her eyes to the moment, locking the immaculate shades of Suntrot's family under her ashen lids like white wings against a black monolith.
From afar, an orange unicorn watched this scene. Inhaling a sudden warmth, fueled by a miraculously cleansing furnace frothing from within, Vimbert reached a hoof into his black jacket. The brown-maned stallion produced the silver flask. He stared closely at it, mesmerized by how the polished surface resembled so many cremated ashes. He closed his eyes and meditated. His brow furrowed, and with an off-color spark, a light was reborn in the shattered hollow of his horn. Buffered by a deep growl, the stallion dredged the wounds of his past outward in a miraculous burst of telekinesis, and along its trajectory there flew the white comet of his flask, so that it landed expertly in the middle of the nearest, blazing bonfire, amputating a long-worshiped tumor from his soul.
He exhaled sharply, reopening his blue eyes to a new dawn, and all of it shimmering like an immortal rainbow stretching through the ages. Across this light show, a naked and bruised mule danced by, being chased by sparks and laughter. Brevis spun to a stop just in time to tap Vimbert's shattered horn like it was a bell.
“Sound off to the school yard! Fill the streets with chaotic curriculum! Class is now in session, and today's pop quiz is a sunrise framed with song!” He grinned with the scant yellow remaining in his mouth and bounded away.
“Heh...” Vimbert brushed himself off and smirked after the scampering mule. “Cheers, ya smelly bum.”
The sunrise was indeed like a song, though Harmony was powerless to hear it. She sat at the dining table of the Pie Family household, clutching her head in two pained hooves, fighting yet another cloud of green flame like a fountain of acid surging through her Entropan frame. If she just stopped fighting, if she just gave in to the currents of reverse-time, she wouldn't be experiencing this agony. Still, she clung tightly to that blistering moment, hugging cohesion with as much fervor as she wished to be embracing a tiny golden filly etched forever into her bleeding memory.
A bouncing of hooves awoke her to that wincing moment in time. She opened her eyes to a veritable sea of Blinkaphine's bright and colorful landscapes. A wall-eyed alligator was lying in the center of the table, curling into the crook of its stubby little tail. A bright pink shade was coming to a stop in front of Harmony, laying a tray full of sweets onto the table.
“How would you like a cupcake, Har-Har?” Her anchor produced a bright, white smile. In just one blink, the time traveler could sum up the entire legacy of Pinkamena Diane Pie. “You must have built quite an appetite overnight! What, with all of that healing and speech-giving and tossing Alex into a burning pile of bits, but I totally forgive you for that last part! I think I'll get the rams to help me build a new Alex! Alex 2.0! This time, he’ll be backwards-compatible to yellow flame, that way I can roast marshmallows over him while healing ponies in the field! Heeheehee!”
“Miss Pie...” Harmony glanced away from the cupcakes. Her copper ears twitched to hear a distant roar. The exultant night of Dredgemane had, as a matter of fact, never ended. Even with the advent of the bright morning, the citizens could still be heard celebrating the burning horizon of tomorrow, regardless of whether or not they knew what it was. They only knew what it wasn't. “Miss Pie, why do you always live in the present? Even now, you act as if... you act as if last night was just like any other night.”
“Heeheehee! Isn't that the way it always is, Har-Har?” Pinkie smiled and smiled in jubilant intoxication. “Every day and every night is a blessed thing. All I've ever wanted to do, all Brevis has ever wanted, all the Bivs or Inkie or Blinkie or Mommy or Daddy or Gummy have ever wanted to do is wake up to just how happy and super another day spent alive is.”
“Miss Pie...” Harmony fought the flames away to produce a somber face before her anchor. “You cried last night.”
“And I laughed and I giggled and I danced—”
“You...” The last pony softly reached a hoof across the table of bright drawings and rested it on her companion's limb. She gazed earnestly into her blue eyes. “You cried, Miss Pie. You cried like... like I've never seen anypony cry before, not even myself.”
Pinkie Pie stared calmly at Harmony's hoof on hers. Something in the contact ushered a grave silence over her. Deep beneath it all, her smile never ended, though it certainly had become a soft, satin thing.
“I...” Harmony bit her lip, tongued the inside of her copper cheek, and said, “I-I'm not going to give you some really depressing speech or something. I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't show sad emotions or what-crap. But... I-I was wondering if you could tell me...” She gulped and gazed painfully at the candy-colored mare. “C-could you tell me what it felt like?”
“Hmmm?” Pinkie's blue eyes blinked curiously.
“Could you tell me what it felt like to cry?”
“Heeheehee...” Pinkie Pie brought her other hoof up and patted the top of Harmony's limb. “Silly filly, of course you would know what it feels like.”
“No.” Harmony shook her head. Her voice was a brief whimper in the blessed morning light that pierced the once-tomb of the Pie Family household. “No, I don't. I've done it so much for so long that I don't know what it feels like anymore. You and Brevis are always preaching about what it means to fall.” She shuddered. “I'm still waiting for my turn, Miss Pie, to transcend by descending, to madly open up the precious pieces of myself and let the doves fly out. It is something that I've yet to experience... and probably never will. But you? You have. So please, tell me. What was it like for you to cry?” She smiled painfully. “Because it must be just like laughing for me.”
Pinkie's blue eyes fell back to the furthest recesses of her sockets. She gulped hard and murmured, “Well, Har-Har, I wish I could explain it. What's the reverse of a hiccup? What does it mean to sneeze with your eyes open? What's the sound of one hoof clapping...?” She paused after that last sentence, snorted, and broke into fresh giggles. “Snkkkt-hahaha.” She waved a pink hoof. “I'm... I-I'm sorry! I can't help myself!”
Harmony exhaled long and hard. “No...” She smiled gently. “I suppose that you can't, Miss Pie.”
“Could I... Uhm...” Pinkie Pie suddenly bit her lip and fidgeted where she stood in front of the table. “Could I ask you something, Har-Har? Though, I guess it really isn't a question. It's... well...”
“What is it?” Harmony leaned back, enjoying a brief spell from the mind-bending emerald flames. “I'm all ears.”
“Well...” Pinkie gulped and gazed at her with glistening blue eyes. Her voice was suddenly a placid pond in the middle of the Grave of Consus. “Last night, when you were healing Suntrot...” She winced slightly. “Erm... when you almost lost her.” Another fidget, but then she bravely leaned forward. “You said something. You talked to someone.”
Harmony stared back. She was silent as stone.
“You said 'I friggin' hate you so much.' It... it kind of came out of nowhere, Har-Har. Even now, I can't get it out of my fluffy head...”
The last pony looked away. Even if she wanted to clarify the previous night's outburst, she wasn't sure if her suddenly pounding heart would allow her.
“You know... Uhm... I-I used to hate him too.”
Harmony glanced up at that, her lips pursing.
Pinkie Pie looked off into the far corners of the house and smiled bitter-sweetly, as if she was consoling a little foal immediately after chastising him. “But... But th-then I figured that he's... well, that's he's really lonely. He always has been. Lonely: that's all.” She looked up at Harmony, and when she did her eyes were piercing sapphires. “Death is the biggest invitation of all. Every pony receives the telegram, and we all have no choice but to RSVP.” She gently stroked the edges of the time traveler's hoof like a mother rubbing a bruise away. “I... I don't really know what is waiting for each and every one of us when it is our time to die, where it is that we go, or if we'll ever see the ones we love and make promises to again.” She took a brave breath as she glanced lovingly at the space where Clyde used to sit. In a bold move, she brushed her limb across it and wiped a swath of dust away forever. “But wherever it is that death takes us, whenever he decides to do it...” She tilted her head aside with the softest of smiles. “...I intend to go there partying.”
The last pony stared back, exhaling sharply. Scootaloo briefly wondered how she could make a eulogy for a funeral consisting entirely of dancing.
“Now...” Pinkie smirked and slid the tray of frosted treats across the table to the copper pegasus. “How about putting some sugar in you, Harmony?” Her teeth glistened at the trail end of that address. “It might not make you laugh, but I promise it'll keep you from frowning.”
Harmony's voice squeaked beneath a feather-soft grin. “Yes, Pinkie Pie. I would very much like to have one of your cupcakes.”
Pinkie very gladly gave her dear friend such a treat. It was halfway through biting into a cupcake when a shadow stretched over the last pony. She and her anchor glanced up from the dining room table of the farmhouse.
Quarrington and Pearl Pie stood side by side, bathed in the light of morning. Their voices were laced with humble breaths as they spoke to the Canterlotlian in Entropan skin.
“Miss Harmony, you have... you have been a dear blessing to this household, in ways that we can't even pretend to describe.”
“We hardly know where you come from, or what brought you here to begin with. After all that's happened in Dredgemane, there's just as much confusion as there is joy.”
“All we know, Miss Harmony, is that we owe you... This entire family owes you so much, and we forever offer our grace and love to you, if it can somehow properly thank you for entering our lives...”
The time traveler took a deep breath. She fought a frothing wave of green flame to give the two parents the smile they deserved. “I don't think I can explain myself any more than you can guess...” She winced at her own words, shrugged, and murmured on, “But I'm glad that I somehow did something that helped you smile...” She glanced at her anchor. “Though I think you would have had no problem finding that smile on your own.”
“Miss Harmony, I mean this with supreme conviction.” Quarrington shuffled over and rested a hoof on her copper shoulder. “I am dearly sorry for the words I said to you in my anger and blindness. If there is something—anything I can do, as a favor to you or the Court of Canterlot—I wish to do whatever it takes.”
“That's quite nice of you, Mister Pie. But I wouldn't worry about it. Seriously—”
A pink hoof suddenly kicked Harmony viciously from under the table.
“Ow.” The avatar of Princess Entropa hissed through clenched teeth. “What the frig?” She frowned across the table.
Pinkie Pie hissed, made a face, and charaded a “telescope” with two hooves stretched above one squinting eye.
Harmony blinked. Her amber eyes fell to a series of crayon-dotted constellations lying on a pile of sheets in the corner of the table. A smile slowly crept across her features. “Ahem... Come to think of it...” She glanced up at the two adults. “There is a favor you can do for me. But... be warned, it's a tad bit kaizo.”
“'Kaizo?'”
Harmony fluttered in mid-air. Squinting through one eye, she held a “frame” before her vision with a pair of perpendicular hooves. “Hmmm... Alright!” She grinned wickedly and lowered herself to the rocky earth. “I think that's about perfect.”
“Do you think we've gone too far?” Zecora asked, lowering a pair of dusty chisels in her grasp. “Or does it deserve at least one more star?”
“It's the night's sky, Miss Zecora.” Harmony smirked in response. “Let the heavens decide what needs or doesn't need to be added.”
She stood before a wide stretch of mountainous stone that rose above the northwestern reaches of the Pie Family's rock fields. With the utilization of a plethora of metal tools and several wooden lattices, Zecora, Pinkie, Inkessa, Blinkaphine, and Quarrington finished chiseling a basic layer of constellation designs across the smooth rock face, using the pegasus' many crayon star charts as one grand blueprint.
“Whew...” Inkessa brushed the dust out of her mane as she stood back from the sculpted masterpiece. “Now I know why I really chose a nursing career. I'm not built with traditional Dredgemane mining blood.”
“Where will you go now that Stonehaven is being mothballed?”
“It isn't being mothballed.” Inkessa slyly smirked. “This town is always going to need a hospital. Besides, Nurse Angel Cake is still going to need my assistance with helping the foals you healed find new homes—the orphans, at least.”
“I'm already writing a letter to Rarity back home in Ponyville! Heehee!” Pinkie Pie bounced cheerfully before the fresh granite mural of cosmic proportion. “She's good at raising bits for all of that awesome foster home stuff!”
“Y-yeah...” Harmony briefly shuddered. “'Awesome...'”
“I too intend to stay as long as I'm needed to assist in blooming what Harmony has seeded,” Zecora murmured with a bright smile. “Never before in my life has the laughter of foals endeared me to so many precious souls. Inkessa, with your permission, I wish to help Angel Cake's plan reach fruition.”
“We would love to have your wisdom and tenacity at our side, Miss Zecora.” Inkessa smiled. “Hocus pocus or not.”
The zebra chuckled, eliciting a giggle from the other mares surrounding the site. Quarrington suddenly cleared his throat and motioned with a nervous hoof. “Uhm... About the big rock...”
“Yes! The question of the Fourth Age!” Harmony spun and gestured at the grand array of dots, swirls, and cosmic bands etched with shallow ease before the wall. “'What to do with the big dumb rock.' Well, the fact of the matter is, it needs a finishing touch... Or in this case, Gultophine's blessing.” Clearing her throat, the copper pegasus turned about. “Dear Deacon...?”
Dawnhoof shuffled into the thick of the group. “I was beginning to wonder when I would be needed.” He aimed his horn at the illustrations across the great wall. “You simply need me to make it all deeper?”
“Yes, handsome,” Pinkie Pie whispered hoarsely as she leaned in. “Har-Har wants you to go deeper—” A copper hoof slapped across the back of her mane. “Owie! Heeheehee! Watch where you swing that hydra hammer of yours!”
“The sooner the better, Deacon,” the scavenger from the future muttered through a brief migraine of green flame.
“Stole the words right out of my mouth, Miss Harmony.” Dawnhoof tensed his features, concentrated, and channeled a stream of energy straight out his horn. A bright glow filled the many swirling lines and dots of the wall as the unicorn's metallurgical talent bore the shallow lines deeper, etching a permanent star map into the bosom of the granite plateau, forever blemishing the Grave of Consus.
Quarrington whistled at the end of the shimmering job. “Well, I find it highly perplexing, but rather striking in its own right.” He smirked towards the young ponies around him. “It'll give us something interesting to look at as we harvest the west fields, at least. Somehow, I doubt that this is the last work of fancy art to dot the walls of Dredgemane these days.”
“Do forgive me if I-I forsake such creative endeavors for a day of scriptural study,” a sweating, exhausted unicorn managed to say. He took a deep breath and spoke with a weathered smile. “If only writing a sermon was as strenuous as carving into a mountain, I might never run out of exercise.”
“I guess in your case, dear Deacon...” Harmony winked. “...It's the thought that counts.”
“I think it looks very pretty,” a voice said, aimed at the cosmic mural.
“Why, thank you very much, Blinkaphine,” Harmony said. “Though, I was focusing more on scientific accuracy than aesthetic quality—” She went Derpy-eyed in mid-sentence. She flashed a look over her shoulder.
The quiet mare with a white-white mane was walking away with Inkessa and Zecora in tow. Quarrington smirked, shrugged, and trotted after them.
“Hmmm...” Harmony exhaled through gently flaring nostrils. “Naturally a pony with a rocket on her butt would appreciate stars.”
“That's something I'm going to have to get used to...”
Harmony glanced over at the young unicorn. “What's that?”
The Deacon blushed slightly and smirked. “As long as I've been in the order, it's been under the stern gaze of Breathstar. Living in a town that no longer enforces a dress code is going to be a brave new world, not to mention a slightly embarrassing one.” He fidgeted slightly, but bravely uttered, “All this time, I've relied on the Spirit of Gultophine to make intuitive judgments about ponies' souls. Now, with everypony's cutie mark exposed... I stand to be distracted. Erm... Wh-what I m-mean to say is, it's so very easy to hold weight in what is or what is not emblazoned across the coats that Gultophine gave us. I never wanted to be clouded by such superficiality.”
“Trust me, I know a thing or two about obsessing over cutie marks, and you couldn't be any further from the truth.” She paused, glanced at him for a brief span of seconds, then softly smiled. “If I may be so bold, dear Deacon, I think you have the most spectacular cutie mark in all of Dredgemane.”
“I do?” He gave her a crooked glance. He looked briefly at the seared skin of his flank and smirked pathetically back towards her. “Miss Harmony, is Pinkamena aware of your blatant sarcasm?”
“No sarcasm at all!” Harmony grinned gently. “What it means to me is that you've lived through flames—self-imposed or not—and you made your destiny for yourself. You are talented beyond compare, Deacon Dawnhoof, because it is a talent that you discovered for yourself, all the while pursuing boundless altruism. That's an inspiration that... that I will certainly take with me wherever I happen to go...”
Dawnhoof smiled. He gulped and glanced nervously aside as a part of him came out through his lips in an off-key murmur. “I am... enraptured that you would want to hold a piece of my spirit dear to you, M-Miss Harmony.”
The copper pegasus sighed dreamily. Just then, her wings shot up. With an exasperated groan, she rolled her eyes. “Dang it, Miss Pie!” She spun around, snarling. “How many times have I told you to stop—?!” She froze, blinking.
Pinkie Pie was twenty meters away, chatting with Zecora and Inkessa. She saw Harmony from afar and waved excitedly before pumping a victorious hoof through the air.
Harmony very hideously, very deeply blushed before the priest-in-training. “Uhmmm...” She gnawed on her lip and slowly, stiffly coiled her wings back by her side. “Eh heh... I don't suppose you're ordained enough to hear confessionals, huh?”
“In a decade or so...” Dawnhoof very sweetly smiled and nodded. “I'll be here, where Gultophine’s Spirit needs me.”
“Yeah... Well... I only know so much about Gultophine's Spirit.” Harmony kicked limply at the earth, bathing it with the ashes of her mind. “I will... I-I will have you in my thoughts, good Deacon,” she murmured in a sullen, cold tone. “Where I will be going.”
“As you will be in mine.” He reached over and patted her copper shoulder, leading her away from the mural and towards the Pie family house. “Would you like to join me for a snack and philosophical discussion? Pinkamena spoke something of sampling her 'Supernova Sarsaparilla.'”
“Awww Celestia dang it.”
“Miss Harmony...”
“Ahem. Hail Gultophine.”
I write to you not just because you're all I've ever had for a friend all these years. I write to you with faith—no—a hope, that you aren't nearly as cruel as I've envisioned you to be. Somewhere beyond the veil of your obsidian girth are all of my loved ones of the past. Though I've pierced the curtains of time to briefly visit them, it will be after piercing you that I finally join them. Maybe then they will tell me what happened after the fall of Dredgemane. Maybe then, in the warmth of all who've come and gone before me, my spirit will know of the legacy of smiles that filled the grave of that somber town where before there was nothing but shadow and darkness.
Days after Harmony vanished from Dredgemane, the naked and bright townsponies were wasting no time. With buckets full of paint and mouths brimming with cheerful conversation, they scaled the glass panes behind the pulpit inside the Cathedral of Gultophine. One plate at a time, they re-stained the wings of the Alicorn Sister of life, returning the rainbow to her majesty.
Far away, in the center of Town Square, Nurse Angel Cake smiled brightly and directed a gaggle of young foals as they climbed the wings of an alicorn statue and painted the granite lengths of it with no less an energetic ambition. They splotched their tiny faces and limbs with errant brushstrokes—sometimes by accident, at other times on purpose, accompanied by mischievous giggles, as hour by hour they returned a kaleidoscope of joy and warmth to the lengths of the town.
The streets hustled and bustled not with cold clopping sounds, but instead with bright discussion, chortling gossip, and bright afternoon plans of levity and joy. Teenagers scampered down tight alleyways, the former guards having converted a net gun into a ball launcher as they played an outlandish rendition of “keepaway” through the many serpentine trenches and hiding places of the town.
At streetsides and bricklaid corners, old bearded ponies communed with youthful equines as the elders taught the next generation how to play beautiful violin music—one string at a time—with an energetic tempo that chased away the melancholic ballads of yesteryear.
At the far reaches of town, where the cobblestone met the granite stretches of the plateau, random citizens knelt down low with chisels and proceeded to remove the bricks, piece by piece, along with the names etched on them.
One such brick was placed gently on the hearth of the Pie Family household. The name that was on it read “Clyde Sesame Pie.” Stepping back from lowering the scant memorial into place, Quarrington took a deep breath. The brick had perceivable mahogany richness to it that complemented the cornucopia of colors that filled the light-drenched lengths of that room.
Pearl Fleece Pie trotted up and nuzzled Quarrington. With a painful but toasty smile, Quarrington stroked her in return. After sharing a kiss, both parents stared lovingly at the name that had rejoined their home, basking in the warmth of the soul's memory and not in the bitter cold gap of its absence.
What Dredgemane gave me was more than just a glimpse at the stars, more than just a way to close the chapter on my memories of Pinkie Pie. Dredgemane showed me what my existence means, for it brims with the essence of all of those ponies, including all of their imperfections, singing and screaming all their hopes and fears. There was no way that the legacy of ponydom could have been solely encompassed by my fitful and subjective little hammock-swaying dreams of the past. For several mesmerizing days, I trotted with them, frowned with them, smiled with them, suffered with them, and ultimately healed with them. Dredgemane has given me so much, and I can only hope—after I'm gone, in both the past and the future—that I have given them back as much as I could, for I will not be able to give all of Equestria the same extent of my blessings, no matter how much I try.
Surrounded by a circle of deadpan rams in the center of a stone hut, Mister Irontail waved a complex blueprint. Gesturing toward his own tools, he began describing a magnificent obelisk made out of arcanium and affixed with a glistening jar of orange flame. He grinned long and hard, entreating the inner engineers within each and every one of them.
The rams shared glances as they shared a unified voice. They murmured and ambivalently spun chanting circles of discourse upon the nature of Irontail's inquisition.
Shuffling up in an obese wobble, Marble Cake suddenly stood at Irontail's bushy-tailed side. With a fluttering of her eyelashes, she not-so-shyly raised a gigantic white box full of bright pink taffy.
In one fluid motion, the rams immediately snatched a chuckling Irontail's blueprint and set themselves to work.
Deep in the mines of the Dredgemane quarry, a remarkable device had been embedded in the rocky flesh of a lantern-lit tunnel. It was a black obelisk fashioned out of arcanium. Two thunderpearls sparked at the top of its structure, and in the center was a grand fishbowl-shaped container of orange flame. Several miners worked and labored steadily around the device, piercing the earth deeper and deeper for valuable resources.
Suddenly, the orange flame burned with a brighter strobe than normal. This triggered the two thunderpearls which immediately sparked life into a pair of rattling bells. At the sound of the shrill alarm, the ponies immediately stopped what they were doing. Infernite was nearby.
Under the cries of a monitoring overseer, the workers filed off in an orderly fashion. Every single one of them made it to the elevator long before the deadly dust even breached the walls of the abandoned shaft.
Above the quarry, there were no longer shuffling lines of lifeless, soot-stained workers. Where solid trains of ponies once slaved under heavy loads of dredged rock like swarming ants, off-duty laborers chatted and waited for their turn to enter the mines. The air above the wounded land coalesced into an atmosphere of levity, punctuated by random laughs and riveting stories while young teenagers hired by Marble Cake's bakery navigated the steep landscape, offering refreshments to the Dredgemaners in-between their breaks.
Atop the scaffold overlooking the continuous industry, several overseers—instead of just one—unanimously directed the current leg of mining operations. As they flipped through the latest spreadsheets of profit earnings, their progress was dwarfed by the legacy of Sladeburn before them, but the casualties had reached an all-time low, in that there was nothing joyously lower than “zero”.
Several lanterns were lit brightly, filling the Council chamber with an illumination the likes of which the place had never witnessed in years. A former guard and his little brother shuffled from lantern to lantern, brightening the place even further as a nodding Quarrington mouthed his approval.
Turning, bearing a grin, Pinkie's father shuffled over towards the table of fellow Council members. Taking his seat, Quarrington proceeded to carry the topic of the meeting into the latest of the town's many necessities. As the city’s representatives deliberated, they paused and swiveled to face the rest of the building's interior where a large audience of Dredgemaners from all walks of life had gathered. The townsponies asked to share their input, as well as their smiles.
It is so daring, so brash, so fitfully frightening to be alive. It means smiling in the face of oblivion. It means galloping at full force when you know that a cliff is waiting for you at the end of of the next bend in the road. It takes a mad euphoria—an insane whimsy to be so courageous when all of the darkness around us begs that we accept defeat. To do anything but roll over is to be absurd, like chasing the rainbow, or performing the “running of the leaves” in July... in a town that has no living trees..
“On your mark, get set, go!” Deacon Dawnhoof shouted, his horn telekinetically firing a confetti cannon at his side.
Under an explosive wave of squealing giggles, dozens upon dozens of brightly-coated foals stampeded down the longest trench in Dredgemane, skirting past Town Square, curving around to brush past Marble End. On all sides of them, lining the curbs and street corners of town, happy parents and shouting teenagers cheered and whistled and urged the racing little children on.
“Remember!” Dawnhoof chuckled and waved a hoof towards the stampeding herd of healed youth. “It's only a race! 'Competition is the spice of life, so long as it remains a spice.' So it is written in Gultophine's holy Chronicles!”
A low, squeaking noise rolled up to the young cleric-in-training's blank flank. “G-good Deacon...?”
Dawnhoof spun about. He blinked his chestnut eyes and smiled while murmuring under the roar of cheering citizens. “I wouldn't exactly call myself a 'good Deacon,' Mayor, sir. But, like everyone, I intend to improve myself.”
Haymane smiled gently, gazing in a soft exhale towards the many bright and scampering youngsters filling the streets beyond. “Such is the aim of progress... of true progress. It's remarkable how easily one can forget what's important to him after every piece of his heart has convinced him that it's worth discarding like the ashes of yesterday.” His nostrils flared. “I am tired of living in yesterday...”
“Mayor Haymane...?” Deacon Dawnhoof narrowed his eyes curiously.
“I was wondering...” Haymane gulped hard and humbly murmured, “If you can help me learn to embrace tomorrow.” He stared up with glistening eyes. “If you could teach me something about... the joy of Gultophine's Spirit, dear Counselor...” The elder's lips curved with something resembling hope.
The young unicorn smiled gently. “I would be honored, sir, to learn about joy with you.”
Several hoots and whistles lit the air of the saloon as Pepper Plots emerged from behind the stage's velvet curtains, one saucy leg at a time. When she finally came out onto the naked lengths of the platform, she was covered in a burlap recreation of a pale unicorn's priestly robes. She wagged her eyebrows goofily.
The room broke into roaring laughter, then into a playful meteor shower of boos and hisses. A mustached bartender briefly worked a piano at the edge of the establishment and rattled a series of high notes to punctuate the sight gag.
“Did you handsome boys really think that this was Ravishing Pepper Plot's new summer fashion choice?” She bucked a gartered hoof backwards from under the burlap sack and winked. “Puhhhh-lease! I've been a Biv! I know a thing or two about flair!”
She sashayed up to the edge of the stage as the piano music accompanied her playful hoofsteps before the locked gazes of everypony in the crowd.
“An adorable hunk of a stallion who may or may not be called Nick-Nack once asked me if I was going to leave for the City of Equestrian Love.” She giggled like a schoolfilly. “You wanna know what I told him? I said, 'Well, sugah, it may be sunny in Fillydelphia...'”
With one shrug of her shoulders, the burlap bag unfurled, and she struck a saucy pose in a flamboyant gown laced from top to bottom with all the colors of the spectrum, accentuating enough curves to send several inebriated patrons fainting to the floor with smiles plastered across their drunken faces.
In answer to many whistles and cat-calls, Pepper winked a painted eyelash as she stuck a hoof into her scarlet mane. “'...but Dredgemane is the one happening town where the rainbow both begins and ends.'”
“That's right, young ones,” a strong voice echoed across the sun-kissed lengths of a concrete schoolyard. Several dozen teenage Dredgemaners sat out in the open with pen and parchment as an orange unicorn paced in front of them. Wearing three prismatic ribbons across the breast pocket of his black jacket—where an alcohol canteen had once rested—Vimbert shuffled to a stop and smirked sharply at them. “Today, we're going to learn about the Siege of Whinniepeg, one of my most favorite topics of the Celestial Civil War.”
One young mare raised her hand.
“Yes, you in the fancy see-through dress.”
Giggles lit the air. The mare blushed, her naked coat just as gloriously exposed as all the other young ponies around her. “Ahem, Mister Vimbert, sir—”
“That's Professor Vimbert, young lady,” he said, pointing a hoof. His orange face brightened under a shattered horn as he smirked at her. “Don't worry, when you yourself finally go through eight years of doctorate courses, you can try to be as pretentiously awesome and handsome as me. I wish you luck with one of those more than the other.”
More chuckles. The mare smiled and nodded. “Very well, Professor Vimbert. Ahem. But could we talk a bit about what just happened here a few weeks ago? I mean, Dredgemane is gonna make history too, right?” Several more teens around her murmured and nodded in enthusiastic agreement.
“Mmm... But that's just the thing. The Siege of Whinniepeg was very similar to what happened in this very town. It was a night that tried the souls of ponies—both those who were swearing allegiance to Luna as well as those who were fighting for Celestia. Nopony was the same the day after the siege as they were the night before. It's amazing how swiftly a single event can transform an entire city—if not an entire nation, practically overnight.”
“B-but didn't most if not all the Lunar Republicans die during the Siege of Whinniepeg?” a teenage stallion exclaimed out of turn.
“Yeesh, am I or am I not the teacher here?!” Vimbert shrugged. Under a cadence of chuckles, he paced, pointed, and spoke, “And it's 'Lunar Imperialists' from here on out, got it? Ahem. Yes, most of the defenders of Whinniepeg perished. But tell me, oh young and infinitely invincible youths... what pony soul doesn't perish in the end?” He paused and smiled warmly. “Who among them is lucky enough to be present, if even for a burning second, at an infinitesimally righteous and soul-cleansing moment in time, the likes of which history may reenact but can never exactly reproduce the beauty of? Written records exist to remind us of the glories of the past, but they also exist to remind us that...” A happy breath escaped the former janitor's lips. “...That even more glorious nights are to come and surprise us, like the Fall of Dredgemane, a song fit for the ages.”
The teenagers murmured and smiled excitedly amongst one another. They leaned forward with sudden anticipation of the lecture about to transpire.
“Yes... The Siege of Whinniepeg...” Vimbert leaned back and folded his forelimbs. “It all started with the execution of Starswirl the Bearded, Sorcerer of Equestrian Legend, who spouted the famous words...” He stared off into the colorful lengths of Dredgemane, like the prismatic refraction of tomorrow's horizon, and it was a beautiful thing. “'So it is the world began, and so it is the world shall end.'”
“Why?! Goodly Brevis will tell you why!”
The naked blue mule limped and half-danced his way across a cobblestone expanse at the edge of town. This time, Brevis' rambling words weren't falling on deaf ears. A thick crowd of citizens had gathered before him—even in the middle of their wagon-pulling business—to grace him with curiosity and wonder.
He reveled in the faces of the living and breathing audience.
“She would not let it end! She smiled and smiled on forever! It was what she only ever tried to do! It was what she was born to do!”
He jumped with his one good leg, grabbed a lamppost, spun around the length of it, and hung an upside-down grin full of yellow teeth and silver fillings.
“And soon Dredgemane would be born again under the cadence of her giggles, rowing oars of blind and daring faith across the churning rapids of a frothy, frightening tomorrow! It was hope that brought us to such chaotic tributaries, hope that we too might transcend as she had! For she found the rainbow when it was but a speck in a power hungry miscreant's frown! She gave birth to the Royal Grand Biv when the militia planted armor on so many children like funeral veils! She was a mother to all smiles, a harbinger of all happiness, and I am not even fit to wear her horseshoes! Why?! The truth is simple, my good Equestrians!”
He dismounted from the lamppost, backflipped, and landed with a slide before tossing a mad grin over his smelly shoulder.
“She saw the bright shinies!”
I was not the messiah of Dredgemane. Far from it. I was an observer, a chronicler. It is not Gultophine's scripture that I write, but the record of a pony who's too busy bouncing, too busy laughing, too busy enjoying life to slow it down by putting hoof to pen. I might be able to bring the Sun and Moon back to the Wasteland. I will never be lucky enough to bring back Pinkie Pie, like she had brought herself back to Dredgemane so many times on her lonesome, like she had raptured them all faithfully with the mere curve of her lips, rendering them numb and impressionable before an eternity of bright opportunity... and sugar...
Two golden-coated ponies looked on, smiling, as Suntrot scampered up to her Auntie Pinkie Pie's side. The blue-eyed mare grinned and scooped the giggling child up in a pair of hugging forelimbs. She rested with the tiny filly in her embrace, sitting before a line of felicitous, healthy foals in the shadow of three sun-kissed trees resting several meters from the trenches of Dredgemane. The air was filled with life and laughter as the fluffy-maned pony proceeded to give the entire company of kids an outdoor lecture on the fine art of paper airplane folding. Sitting off to the side, Inkessa and Zecora shared a mutual snicker while helping a random colt or filly with the expert folding process.
As several white projectiles flew majestically over the air of giggles, Pinkie Pie nuzzled the center of Suntrot's skull and proceeded with another one of her boundless jokes, bearing a grin that fought away the last hidden shadows of the Grave of Consus.
Twenty-five years later, the darkness bowed to the glinting sheen of a moonrock obelisk planted in the Ponvyillean earth before the ruins of Sugarcube Corner. Seated besides a pile of digging tools, Scootaloo faced the fresh grave and stared beyond it.
“Hmmmm-hmmm-hmmm... Heheheheheh...” The quivering equine ran a hoof through her pink mane and over a scrunched face as she broke the ashen air with a mad exhale. At first, it sounded like she was dying, but then it morphed into a braying outburst. “BraHahahahahaha! Ha ha ha... Ohhhh... “'What goes up white but comes down yellow, gray, and white?!'” Scootaloo hissed, snorted, and waved a helpless, brown forelimb. “Ohhhhhhhhhhh friggin' A. But of course, Pinkie Pie. But of course. Still, I liked it better that one time when I first met the Mayor and you were all 'Hey Haymane, how's it rolling?' Snkkkt-hahahahaha!”
Scootaloo heaved. Scootaloo hyperventilated. There were tears running down her face, but they broke anchor at an odd thing that they hadn't encountered in decades: a runaway smile. If the last pony let it, that grin could have gone on forever. The last pony may have been one step closer to bringing harmony back to the world, but she couldn't find the time to stop laughing and find out.
“Spike told me that you once danced in Pepper Plots' showpony outfit before an entire stampeding herd of buffalo. Yeesh, that had to have been the most exciting crap to have happened in Appleloosa in an entire century. I wonder if any of your jokes had as much luck in that sorry town. You should have told those buffalo the one about the blackout and the pony who met a drunk on the first floor of a hotel building—”
Scootaloo suddenly gasped, her scarlet eyes wide. She waved a hoof and tried to cover her snickering face.
“Snkkkt—Heeheehee! Oh! I know one! This one's a doozy! Ahem. So, like, there's this insane asylum and two mad ponies escape through the chimney. It's in the middle of pitch black night as they try to make a run for it, hopping from one rooftop to another. They need to get across to the next building, right? Well, one insane pony has a flashlight, and so he says to the other...” She paused and blinked, smiling crookedly. “Wait—heeheehee—have you heard this one before?”
I am more than the end of ponies. I am more than that which can be determined by beginnings and endings, or even by you. I am an amazing, miraculous, and tragically precious phenomenon, like so many phenomena that pranced across the world on wings and hooves before me.
The Cataclysm may have taken lives, but it couldn't touch Life itself. Even if all the written and spoken history of ponydom perishes along with me, the Wastelands cannot undo the fact that there ever once was an Equestrian civilization, that there ever once was a reason to smile and bask in the warmth of existence, that there ever once was a need to start something as delightfully mad as this experiment that I'm working on.
And it is an experiment that I shall end, if not by Gultophine's Grace, than by my own. The most that I can afford is the best that I can afford, because I am more than the last pony.
I am alive.
-End of entry.
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I haven't read this before, but it looks promising knowing SS&E's pedigree. Just now getting into the Fallout Equestria's and have a lot to catch up on, but I'll work to find some time.
YEAH!!!!!!
Soon it will update. I am very happy. Now I have to drop what I'm doing and reread the story.
Also,
And why did a lot of already out chapters get re updated?
2066554 28? Try 52
sad, dark, tragic, everypony dies. nothing to do here
2066610 Mandopony... lol, thats funny cuz hes pretty famous. To answer your question I think its because of all the complaints about the later chapters being to long to finish reading. Before after chapter 10 (now 12) the length of each went from around 10,000 to 20,000 for two chapters (fluttershy arc) then to 30,000 per chapter (pinkie pie arc). At that point just about everyone didn't have 3-4+ hours to read the fic. I think thats why they got re-uploaded because now their much shorter.
I feel lied to. I saw a sudden increase in my favorite stories with unread chapters box, clicked, and the first name I saw was End of Ponies. My hopes go sky-high in thinking this may be the arc you've (I hope) been working on, and instead, you were organizing this.
Neh, that aside, nice work! This must've taken a SHIT long time, and I think we ALL appreciate you making this admittedly long story more bearable.
Now I will have no hobbies for a week!
And now seriously: Thanks so much! For before, for now, and for the next ones to come!
I had read up to chapter 10 in google docs and im happy to see it was posted here
2066634
BAWWWWWW
Boo-motherucking-hoo
Whoah. That's a lot of new chapters.
Holy shit
So many new chapters, and here I was thinking it was a dead-fic 
wow i thought this fic was dead and then this happens
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/21473698/images/1352329875509.jpg
ugh i cant read anything now i have to go to bed cause i got work early >.>
An update for End of Ponies?
Holy-F*CKIN-SHIT!
2066634
It most decidedly has a Steampunk Scootaloo in it, though...
Wow shit that's a lot of chapters
I read this already odd that its recent...
2067350 Perhaps you don't understand. SS&E, the author, is totally revamping the fic, and he actually ended up dividing his text into many more smaller chapters. He's also rewriting some of the actual text.
2067377 I see
Looks like its time to buy 52 new pairs of pants!
Well darn! I ordered a custom copy in print and now I have to order a new one! Not to mention the first one literally takes up half the bookshelf.
532k words? Holy shit... I'd take it that this is the longest mlp fanfic, as one story, to date? That's also excluding universes... either way, this must be read.
Argh, I thought it was an update, but it was just keeping it up to date! When is this going to finish?!
How do you have so much time on your hands?!
This is probably my favorite quote, Dawnhoof shows just how far Breathstar had twisted and perverted the holiness of the Grave of Consus.
Reading this again, the Pinkamena arc is like one big allegory for religion. I'm not saying religion is bad, mind you, nor any specific religion is bad. But the evil spawned by a religion isn't spawned because a bad religion, but ignorance. The evil is purely the sin of human nature, and to kill for a religion is an excuse to create an output for that sin.
So here's the biggest joke in the world: A bunch of people slaughter and hurt innocent men- claiming that their actions are in the name of a God of love!
2067689 I feel a lot when a religion is forced down my throat. I've seen kids say that he/she didn't believe in god and others claim that that person is going to hell for not believing.
In my church, In my school bus, and even in some religious flame wars in videos that doesn't even involve religion in the slightest. But after reading this epic literature, I intend to laugh in their faces if it ever happens again. Because it's what I would if I was pushed too far. Because I'm inspired by pink.
I cant believe I'm going to read this. But I will. I don't need three months of life anyway...
I nearly had a freaking heart attack, I have deadlines besides pony, you know!
At least it's just reorganization for now. Hopefully the real updates will come when I have time to read them.
And just consider, I'm contemplating just retreading this whole thing once it's complete. I know that solid week of doing nothing but reading (not even sleeping, or eating, or using the bathroom...) will be well spent.
Ah, not an update after all. Just revisions.
YES! End of Ponies is no longer on hiatus! Updates my just be revisions but I'm glad to see that SS&E is back to writing this one. Can't wait for the next chapter!
Whoa whoa WHOA! 28 "favorites" updates? WHAT THE FUU- oh it's the new split chapters of EOP..... Jeez, don't scare me like that, Shorts!
2067377 So, as you seem to understand better than I, should I simply mark all as unread?
And "Cold-Start" from the beginning?
Either way, I shall get back into this 'fic.
WHAT! THE HELL HAPPENED! All of a sudden there's, like, 30 new chapters. Jeezuz christ!, welp. time to read from the begininng. Haven't read this one in a while.
2067449
And that's not even its final form!
2069357
No, by all means, thanks for being the guy. I'll probably have to go through and fix that manually. Something happened in Open Office that screwed it up. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
2070741
Thanks an absolute ton. I don't know why that happened. Much appreciated.
2075184
Wyrd. I thought I recall changing that as well. However, Chapter 9 is "Act Two," which is Fluttershy stuff, and you didn't have access to any of that crapola in GoogleDocs, so that might be the reason. Me? Learn from my past mistakes? F'naaa.
Well, it's corrected now, along with the pants thing. Much thanks.
EoP 2013 still isn't perfect. As other marsupials have pointed out, there are numerous fuck-ups with formatting, especially early on. When I have the time, I need to go back through and fix some of those things manually, but--you're right--it's about time I moved on just the same. The next arc won't write itself.
Oh well.
-SS&E
2066764 He didn't cut content out the chapters in the sense of just removing it though right? He just re spaced them out over more chapters? I haven't been able to re read it yet so I don't know.
Also what do you mean by his famous?
2077487 They where left as original as possible but a few changes were made so its about 90% the same, read the authors blog about the 52 for the details on the changes(quite long).
Mandopony is a well known musician in the fandom, as if YOU didn't know that lol. some links https://twitter.com/MandoPony http://www.youtube.com/user/MandoPony
2079876 Found the blog post. Also, I seriously didn't know there was a musician named Mandopony until a little while after I made my profile.
Six days. Six goddess-forsaken days i have poured into this fic. never before has a single writing piece held my interest for that long. and for that, congratulations.
On another note..the entirety of act 4 had very tying songs rolling through my subconscious, not unlike the melodies Octavia has woven through Scootaloo's mind. particularly that of The Unforgiven, King Nothing, and (Welcome Home)Sanitarium by Metallica. peerhaps it is coincidence, but i can rreally feel a connection between those lyrical masterpieces and the plight of Dredgemane.
bravo, good sir or madam, for you have sparked a failing flame within my pony-driven heart to burn strong as flamestone once more. i can assure you that this will remain on the TOP of my list of best fics ever undertaken.
Be proud that you took those six days from my grasp and threw them into the maelstrom that is the literary genius of 'The End of Ponies'. I will no doubt be spreading your words of justice to my fellow readers and friends, ensuring them the same spread of Entropan time it took me to fall in love with this world once more.
Great story, in case you didn't already know. I just finished it and am eager for the next story arc. The new chapter divisons you created were excellent too. They not only made it easier to read, but seemed to always end at the right moment.
Will there be more story arcs after Petra? I am hoping we can see the story come full circle, so that Scootaloo eventually anchors herself to Dash. We also haven't learned much about the cataclysm other than it's effects and it's name. The only pony who could have built the Arcane Vault that saved Scootaloo was Scootaloo, so that'll be an interesting story.
I can't speak.
I just can't speak.
This is amazing.
Augh, finally finished with the re-read, even if a lot of it was minor re-editing.
(Still not as bad as re-reading Wheel of Time's going to be, now that the last book is finally out.)
Something is wrong with the EPUB download, every time I download it and put it on my nook, It says it cannot be opened. I've redownloaded multiple times for same problem to occur.
To call this story epic would be the mother of all understatements. It took a week or two but I finally managed to power through all of it, but now that I have I can't help but want more.
I love how with each encounter, Scoot's seeming to discover a bit more not only about herself, but also just what kind of legacy she represents. Becoming the last pony at such a young age did little to really show here what life was like in Equestria, especially outside of Ponyville and seeing her grow a little each time just makes the story that much better.
I just can't wait to see what happens next. Excellent work.
I really enjoy this story, Im sure Id like it mire if someone fixed the ePUB download it is only this single story that I cant download; Anyone who helps will be given a huge thank youand the largest imaginary cookie imaginary money can purchase.
When I read Petra was almost here...
images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111107163450/mlp/images/c/cb/Rarity_happy_S02E05.png
Yes!!!
Can't wait!
Mother of GOD! When did all these updates appear and why was I not informed?................Well there goes my next week.
Finally. Finally finished rereading it. And you know what? It's just as good as it was the last time. Maybe even a tiny bit better.
Funny...it's been about a year and and two months since I first read this....My god, I love this fic so much. I really do. I still need to write a full review for it. Maybe when it comes time for the REAL Petra Arc. (though I maintain that the rough draft was damn good)
2072066
No problem, dude. And there were other mistakes besides that, but it'll take me ANOTHER reread to point them out. Let's just say there were other instances of lacking spaces, and Sweetie "Bell" among other things (especially in the earlier chapters) Still, glad I could help. Keep on writing on, good sir.
Oh, and you should probably leave a warning somewhere for the new readers about the comments. Maybe an author's note at the end of the first chapter. Those comments kinda got shuffled to the forefront after the chapter splits, and thus are rather spoiler heavy (Scootaloo reveal a few chapters early, all the excitement of the Dredgemane Arc now mentioned in smack in the middle of the Circle of Kindsness Arc, etc.). Kinda ruins the fun, dont'cha know.