Part 1

I’ve lived in Bramley my whole life. Sure, some folks might tell you it’s too dry or too hot, but those ponies typically move away before they really get to know the place. It’s a real shame, too. Maybe she’s not so nice to newcomers, but she’s awful kind to her kin once they start to carve out a life here.

Yes, I know what I said. Bramley, or any town for that matter, has just as much personality as any pony, griffon, zebra, buffalo, or whathaveyou that you might come across. Sometimes, Bramley’s really sweet. Other times, she can be hostile, as if she were seeking vengeance on her denizens for some mysterious wrongdoing they’d committed against her. Mostly though, she was as docile as a lamb, a peaceful place for families to raise their foals and make an honest living.

Of course, Bramley had her secrets, too. Have you ever seen that shed out behind Quick’s Trade Emporium? Quick says it’s just extra storage space that he doesn’t use, but I’ve never once seen him go inside. Maybe he’s spooked, for some reason? Decrepit thing always used to scare the jeepers outta me, I’ll say that right now!

Or how about the old mineshaft out past Rocky Road’s dairy farm? Ever since the roof fell in twenty-some odd years ago, nopony has set a hoof in that old place. Honestly, the cave-in isn’t what drives Bramley’s citizens away. The simple fact is, not a single pony was so much as injured when the roof collapsed.

When the old mine was still in use, I could remember teasing my brother and his friends, pestering them to go work with the older ponies every time we passed it on the way home from school. He didn’t mind my joking all that much; Barrel was always a good sport. Granny kept telling me to cut it out, though. She didn’t like the idea of Barrel or myself working in a mine, saying that we needed to get a good education. I’m glad we took her advice to heart, or more accurately, that she was around to keep harping at us at a time when we would have considered it thoughtfully.

As I said, I stayed in Bramley after we were out of school. Barrel stuck around for a few years to help me get a little apple orchard started. I wish I’d have helped him and Granny more back then, but I was too caught up trying to keep Bramley afloat after the mining incident. It wasn’t my job so much as the mayor’s, though I often thought it was everypony’s job just as much as it was his, if that makes any sense. I even pushed to have the old mine re-opened; the new mineshaft was awfully far from town, and the work had been very slow getting started.

But the townsfolk were adamant. Even with Barrel backing me up, I just couldn’t convince them to use the old mine. And honestly? They still look at me funny if I ever bring up the past, nowadays. There’s this very familiar twinkle in their eyes, followed by a condescending glance, and finally, a disapproving head shake. It’s as if the townsfolk are still seeing a couple of foals trying to cook up a wild ghost story instead of two fully-grown ponies attempting to have a rational discussion of Bramley’s history. Which is ridiculous! Ask anypony in Bramley why the old mine is still closed twenty years later, and do you know what they’ll say?

“That old mine’s haunted!”

A ghost story indeed! If only the town would just stop and think for a second, they would see the truth instead of wild superstition. Like Barrel and I do.

After all, it wasn’t a ghost story while it was happening.

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Summer days in Bramley were the worst. In a little town situated at what seemed like the edge of the world, the scorching sun above was both our greatest ally and fiercest enemy.

And to two young foals without their cutie marks, it was nothing but a bright, blazing nuisance. This was a time before In-World unicorns had developed means of remotely regulating temperatures in paltry villages and dusty towns like those in Out-World, which at that time would have been regarded as savage lands where ponies - if any somehow existed in Out-World - were pillaging barbarians with scaly hides and scarred faces.

My earliest memory dates back to the day in which Barrel got his cutie mark. It was a sweltering mid-summer day, and Miss Foxwhelp had convinced Granny to let my brother cart some of her cider apples to town. I remember piping up, hopping around excitedly and begging to help Miss Foxwhelp too! Granny gave me a sharp look, but the apple farmsmare giggled, saying that she could definitely use my “youthful energy and enthusiasm”. I got to ride in the back of the cart with the loaded barrels.

Barrel was sweating by the time we got to town. Heck, I was sweating, and I wasn’t the one hauling six full apple barrels and a hyperactive filly! Although, nothing made me prouder than to see Barrel trot down Mane Street with his head held high. His bright orange coat was matted with dirt and sweat, as was his blond mane and tail, yet he looked so very strong, so incredibly “adult-like”, which was a revered state of existence that all foals in Bramley sought to obtain in those ancient times. We were foolish in thinking so, but such is youth.

We passed by the general store. The saloon. The post office. The trade emporium. The train station. I could see our destination just ahead, and I scrambled to the front of the cart to point with a shaky, excited hoof over my brother’s shoulder.

“Look Barrel! I can see the distillery from here! See it? Huh? Do ya?”

He chuckled wearily, and even though he was dog-tired, Barrel still turned and gave me a quick wink. “I see it, Sis. Now you just be careful like we talked about, okay? Try not to move around too much, or the cart might topple over.”

Barrel was always worried about me when we were growing up. The other kids used to poke fun at me when I was very, very little, days that I hardly remember at all anymore. One of them called me “Beetle” back then, although I’ve since forgotten why. Something about my fascination with critters perhaps, though I typically steered clear of bugs and crawlies. So maybe that was why after all! All I know is, Barrel gave that colt a thump on the noggin for it, and I cried for nearly an hour - not because of the name, but because I just couldn’t stand violence! From that point on, I insisted that everypony call me Beetle, which stuck with my for the bulk of my foalhood and a bit past graduation. I think I did it in an effort to somehow appease the other foals or something.

My brother never called me Beetle, though. I dunno if it’s because I cried, or because that colt was just being a rapscallion as all young colts invariably are, but Barrel insisted that I always be called by my real name. My proper name. What would be my adult name, if and when I finally decided to grow up. I acted like it drove me nuts, but in hindsight, I adored him for it. Oh, and the colt who first called me Beetle? We ended up going steady just before our school’s annual promenade a year before we graduated. Go figure, right?

Barrel’s hooves made perfect horseshoe prints in the dust, the cracked, parched earth giving way beneath the weight of the cart’s massive wooden wheels and making great treads in the ground. I remember thinking that, had I wanted to, I could probably have followed those tracks all the way back up to the Foxwhelp farm. That is, if it weren’t for the gentle breeze tossing dust back over our path or ponies plodding through our backtrail.

These sensations are ingrained in my mind. The faint, sweet aroma of apple cider wafting from the distillery. The blazing sun bearing down on us from above. The sound the spokes on the cart made as they creaked their tired way around and around, as well as the chatter of Bramley’s citizens milling about along their daily routines just behind us. We were southbound, and the road that led to the distillery was scuffed from thousands of carts before our’s making deep treads into the dry earth that never quite fully healed.

Then something happened. Something decidedly... unnatural.

What came first was a chill. I don’t just mean that sudden shivery feeling you get when somepony says something off-kilter, or those prickly things you get when a phoenix flies over your grave. No, this was a sustained coldness that went deep past my coat into my flesh, and for a moment, I was no longer sweating.

I slowly looked up to Barrel. He was moving automatically, his legs rising and falling like some sort of machine while he gazed blankly forward to the distillery. Then I glanced behind us to the town. They were ALL wearing a strange, empty expression. Not despondent or sad. Just... it was as if the lights were all on, but nopony was home.

Next came the light. It was extremely sudden, lasting no longer than two flaps of a buzzard’s wings. The shine seemed to come from nowhere at all, yet it permeated absolutely everything. Every pony, every structure, every creature or cloud, and even the ground itself: they were all emanating - or maybe reflecting - a bright blue luminescence.

Then I was on the ground, some feet away. This part of my memory is extremely fuzzy, partly on account of how young I was at the time, and partly on account of the fact that I did end up fainting. I remember that I had been thrown from the cart, and that I had a cut just above my eye from a nearby rock. I must have skidded or something. One of the back wheels of the cart, the one closest to me, it just completely fell apart, as though somepony had slammed the spokes with a mallet.

The barrels had broken their paltry rope restraints. They were rolling toward me, and I would surely be stampeded by six massive, heavy containers of cider apples. I remember closing my eyes and screaming for my brother. Or maybe I was just screaming, it’s hard to recall.

The next thing I knew, Barrel was hunched over me. He scooped me up in a foreleg, and got the direct impact of two apple barrels to the torso for his troubles. My brother had been angled funny, like he planned to both protect me by getting hit himself while likewise contemplating just pulling us both out of the way. If he had, he might’ve lost one or both of the legs on his right side. As things stood, he got extremely lucky, only suffering a few broken ribs and a ton of scrapes and splinters.

Oh, and a cutie mark, too! My brother Barrel was now the proud owner of - what else? - a barrel on his flanks, sporting a bi-colored shield crest of red and green in the center where a brand or sticker might go. He was incredibly proud of it. I was too.

According to Granny, some folks from the distillery saw what happened and rushed us to Doc’s place. One of the six barrels had careened off-course and slammed into a rock, spilling its contents all over the dusty ground. Four others were scattered, but more or less intact. The sixth barrel rolled all the way down the hill and back into town before a couple of pedestrians managed to catch it and roll it back up the hill to the broken cart with the others. Had they not stopped the barrel, it may have slammed into somepony and seriously injured them like it had Barrel!

But that’s what sticks out in everypony’s minds.

The two ponies wore heavy, dirty coats that were covered in patches. They kept to themselves, and had bandanas covering their muzzles. One had a deep scar across his face that he could not conceal, and the other never went anywhere without her brown farmhand’s hat.

Those two kind-hearted pedestrians? They weren’t locals to Bramley.

They were strangers.

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