11. One Mare's Trash
It didn’t take me long to locate the Cutie Mark Crusaders. As part of their bid to get a public service related cutie mark for picking up trash, they had collected some bright orange bags and vests. If the bags had said Canterlot Correctional Institute on the side I would not have been the least bit surprised.
I flew down towards them to offer a hoof and spend a little time with them. The fact that there were no signs of siege weaponry was a definite plus, perhaps a sign that they were running out of truly radical plans and had to resort to the kind of mundane tasks that the rest of us spent our lives doing for a living.
“Hey, squirts,” I shouted as I flew down and landed next to them. I tilted my head to the side as I looked at the large bag of trash Sweetie was dragging along a bit haphazardly with her magic. “Wait, where’d you get so much trash? Now that I think of it, I haven’t really seen a trash problem in Ponyville before.”
“Dawn!” The three fillies smiled and ran over. “Oh,” Scootaloo answered, “it’s mostly cupcake wrappers and spoiled goods from Pinkie’s emergency cupcake stashes around Ponyville.”
“Uh, then shouldn’t Pinkie be out picking them up?” I asked.
“Well, normally she would, but we came up with a plan to help out and get our cutie marks,” Sweetie explained. “Normally the trash pony would go around emptying all the public trash cans placed throughout town and picking up any stray litter, but for this entire week, we’ve been doing it!”
I chuckled and looked around at the street we were on. There was a bit of frost and snow in some of the bushes, but the road itself was in between being dry and muddy. Luckily, my hooves only sank an inch down in it when I landed, as I’d have to clean my hooves off thoroughly before doing pretty much anything now. It was definitely a large plus that, as a pegasus, I didn’t have to land if I wanted to keep my hooves clean, but the window for that had passed. As for the trash, Sweetie was right and I noticed the nearby trash bin, a decorative wrought iron affair, with an empty bin inside.
“It’s looking good girls, good work,” I stated. “I figured I’d come see if you want some help.”
Sweetie breathed a sigh of relief, “I thought you’d never ask! I’ve been lugging these bags around all day. Want to carry this back for me?”
“Uh sure.” I walked over and looked at the bag as she tied it off, picturing this in my head. I couldn’t grip something that heavy with a hoof, there was nothing to get my fetlock around and the frog of my hoof itself was more of a suction cup and less of a proper replacement for an opposable thumb. There was only one way I could pick it up, and I suddenly realized why Sweetie, with her magic, had to do all the lifting. “You want me to lift it with my mouth?”
“Heh, yeah, that’s why we have her on bag duty,” Apple Bloom explained. “That, and we’d have to drag it, we’re not big enough to toss it over our backs.”
I sniffed at the knot on the top of the bag apprehensively. It seemed that unlike trash bags on Earth, these bags were much longer allowing the knot to be further removed from the smell of garbage, and giving something a bit further from the ‘action’ to bite onto. “I wonder if kissing a trash collector is like digging around in a trash bag for food.”
“Huh?” Scootaloo tilted her head.
“Oh, nothing, lead the way.” I bit the knot and twisted, bringing the bag into an uneasy balance on my back. I followed after the crusaders as we headed towards the dumping point for the trash.
“I’m glad this week is almost up, I still haven’t gotten a cutie mark! And you know what that means,” Scootaloo stated.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie sighed, “Yeah, it’s your turn to pick again,” Sweetie responded.
Scootaloo flew up onto a small picket fence in front of a house to our left and started slashing at the air with a hoof. “I’m thinking musketeer cutie marks, we can practice our sword-fighting.”
“I was thinking something that didn’t involve weapons would be a nice change of pace,” Sweetie replied.
That’a girl!
I continued to follow them as we veered left towards the center of town, and listened in.
“Well, we never did advanced potions with Zecora, we could do that, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom suggested.
“I don’t know, that sounds kinda boring… what about Vinyl? She could teach us to drop the bass,” Scootaloo responded.
“Rarity says she gets enough noise complaints, I doubt she’ll get fewer of them with us helping,” Sweetie answered.
“Ugh, you take the fun out of everything… Well, I was saving it for a special occasion, but we could try our firefighting cutie marks!”
We rounded one last corner to the backside of the day spa, and came across a large metal monstrosity. I dropped the trash bag. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. The metal working alone—how? Why?!”
Sweetie shrugged and levitated the bag into the trash compactor, grunting as it took all her effort to lift the bag fully into the air and shove it into the compactor.
“Oh, we just improved the design, there’s always been a compactor here. It’s powered by geo… geo-magnetic… no…” Apple Bloom paused to think about it.
“Geothermal energy, the day spa is built near some vents!” Sweetie explained. “It was Scootaloo’s idea, with a few minor adjustments, it can compact more trash more densely more often!”
I nodded as I slowly backed away from the Crusaders, until I was peeking out from behind the corner of the day spa. “Ahuh, sounds good.”
Scootaloo looked to her side and noticed I wasn’t there, then looked back at me. “Hah, come on, Dawn, you’re acting like a filly. We’ve been running it all week without a problem!”
“No offense, girls, but the only cutie mark you three are likely to get related to heavy machinery is a demolition cutie mark,” I explained. I pointed to the machine, which was full to the point of overflowing. “Now, since I seem to be the only adult around when you three need supervision and that thing’s full to bursting, I’m going to supervise from back here.”
Apple Bloom nodded and walked up to a control panel on the machine, pressing the green start button. “You know, I heard if a pony got stuck in there it’d flatten ‘em to the size of a pancake.”
“Do you think that’s how Pinkie makes her famous windigo pancakes?” Scootaloo asked.
The machine happily hummed away as the giant metal roof pressed down on the garbage, and soon the side walls started moving, too. “What, you think she sticks windigo in a trash compactor?” Apple Bloom asked.
“No, but, like, she could have a smaller one in her basement or something?” Scootaloo explained.
“Windigo aren’t real anyway, our sisters are just pulling our legs and tryin’ to get us all to watch the Hearth’s Warming pageant,” Apple Bloom countered.
“Oh, I didn’t peg you for a skeptic,” I interjected. The trash compactor was starting to rumble and hiss as it neared the limits of what it could compress.
“Twilight says they’re real and I believe her, Apple Bloom is just convinced that Dash brings the harsh winter snow to help sell some prank,” Sweetie explained. “I don’t think ponies are still that disharmonious that windigos will ever cause another century-long winter, but they’re out there somewhere.”
The trash compactor hissed and came to a full stop, silence filled the air. I waited for a moment and stepped out, approaching the girls. “Wow…” I looked at the machine skeptically, “I was totally expecting that to blow up and cover us all in garbage.”
“We don’t always end up covered in tree sap, it’s just sorta become plan B,” Scootaloo offered.
“Though the time Apple Bloom convinced us to try for a lumberjack cutie mark, we didn’t get a single drop of tree sap on us. Go figure.” Sweetie chuckled and pointed to the machine. “I guess we should open her up and see how big the trash bale is.”
Apple Bloom nodded and pressed the red button on the machine, but nothing happened. She pressed it a few more time. “I think it’s stuck, we better just leave it for the trash pony to figure out.”
I was about to say something when I saw a ripple in a small puddle of muddy water, then it vanished. After a few seconds there was another ripple, followed by a small tremor in the ground. “Uh, girls?”
“That’s not fair to leave it for someone else to clean up,” Sweetie replied.
“Yeah, but last time you had me crawl under it to repair something, I had mud in my mane for days,” Apple Bloom complained.
The ripple crossed the small puddle again. “Girls,” I said more loudly. “There is either a Tyrannosaurus Rex coming to brutally murder us, or something’s wrong with that machine.”
“A tyrasorn—what?” Sweetie asked, but I at least had all three fillies attention now.
There was a hissing sound as steam escaped the trash compactor and the rumbling intensified, followed by a stream of obscenities as I realized exactly where this was going. Though not productive, it certainly felt good. The crusaders were looking at me like I’d just scrubbed their brains out with a brillo pad.
“Run, you fools!”
I am certain I would have made it to safety, but my hoof sank in the mud and I stumbled forward rather slowly. I looked back to see them running towards me too, followed by a loud whistle as a pressure valve on the trash compactor blew open. If I survived this, I was going to have a long talk with whatever pony had decided to let the Crusaders run their machinery for the week.
A moment later, there was a loud pop, followed by the sound of crunching metal. My life flashed before my eyes, a jumbled mess of human and pony images, before I dove on top of the nearest Crusader to shield them from what I could only assume would be a fiery ball of death.
A wave of air hit me, followed by the sound of debris raining down on nearby buildings. I looked down and found that Sweetie had been the one I’d leapt on top of to protect, and she was compressed between me and the mud. Her white fur was caked black, but she was safe.
Then the stench hit.
I don’t know what the ponies in this town were throwing away, but it tested the limits of my imagination to try and figure out exactly what I was smelling. I could only imagine that someone had bathed a rotting carcass thoroughly in skunk extract, wrapped it up in towels soaked in rotten milk, stuffed it into a gym duffle bag that hadn’t been washed out for years, tied it off with the intestines of a cow with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, pumped it full of sulfur and hydrogen sulfide, and lit a stick of dynamite inside of it.
To say that the stench could peel paint off the side of a barn would be an understatement. Large blobs of discarded food, diapers, socks, and other detritus landed on and around me. I’m fairly certain that where the trash touched, my hairs started to turn gray prematurely.
With a frustrated sigh, I felt a final piece of trash land on my face and blew it off with a huff. In front of me, a small poster landed in the mud. There was a cartoon drawing of Owlowiscious on it.
Give a Hoot,
Don’t pollute.
INVISIBLE NOTE: You know, I've had blank spaces at the end of my stories forever and I've never hidden a message in them? I don't like when I'm reading a story and I see the "end" coming from a full page away, so I decided to add some empty space at the end of my stories. It seems like an elegant solution, until everyone asks why I do it at least. Maybe, if I hid little messages in it, people would be like "Oh Kaidan you're so cool! It's like A/N for the cool kids only!" But on the other hoof, people on mobile or using night-time friendly color schemes where this message isn't white on white, will be like "What the fuck? I'm trying to mind my own business and enjoy the story and then this huge off-topic rant comes out of nowhere!" So I don't know. I guess we'll see how this goes. Maybe I've already hidden some messages in my other stories, just to reward you for going back and checking. Maybe in the future, all my A/N's will be white on white. I guess you could call these hidden notes... AHHH YEAH!
I was bored and someone said they were eager for another update so here you go! I'll stop editing *after* I publish, honest! It's not a problem, I could edit before posting anytime I want!
I'm just glad to be back. 
-Edited by Neko Majin C
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7757752
You just *had* to say it, now I can' not use the tropes! Or can I?
You know half the CMC's issues is that they are left unsupervised so often no wonder they are a walking disaster.
Now that you're writing again I should go back and reread the series
Holy crap, that rant at the end though.
Something HAD to go wrong. And it stinks like rotten hell
It's going to be fun cleaning that up, aye.
7761501 I meant the sun, but I think what you came up with is better.
Then Soarin' would be the one who ended up in the insane asylum instead of Dawn!
It's brilliant!
And hey, we never saw that mirror get destroyed...
Joke's on you, I read with dark format. Now who's invisible?
She should have run as soon as she saw them operating heavy machinery.
I thought this story was dead I'm so glad it's back.
7762229 me too
the CMC really need some one to keep a closer eye on them rather then just letting them run loos getting in to things like any kid will do when left alone.
a good chapter yes dawn is cover in well stuff but she hade a chance to relax and forget about life for a bit.
7762229 7762303 Same.
7762009 great chapter my friend I just cant wait for more uploads to this story I love these dash of humanity story series keep me updated my friend
Ahhhhhh!
I saw what you did there... and I approve!
Also, I read in Ultra Dark!
Nice job!
7760441 i think he's spent longer on earth, so i feel as if he'd be more comfortable as a male. who knows though?
7762261
That's the curse of short slice of life chapters. Then a chapter comes along that's 6k words and it's like "oh shit boys, buckle up!"
7762597
That sums it up perfectly!
XDD
7763330
"Sees 6k chap" well then....only one thing to say at a time like this....: LEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOY!!!! GENKENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Glad to see you back at it again, I've always enjoyed this series, can't wait for more!
7763896
Wait, Leeroy Genkins? You must be that guy who pronounces gif as jif! I found you at last!
7763485
Well I could just tell you what happened in a sentence or two... but the original is actually not bad. Read it, skip DoH2, re-read the 2nd chapter of DoH3, and you should pretty much be up to speed!
7763864
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw3406-13282074473265.gif
sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-let-the-shitstorm-begin-1.png
7764350 lmfao nope. Just terrible at spelling certain things.
Well that was a wonderful diversion, guess i should go back to trying to figure out why my Fallout 4 insta crashes whenever i click play on the launcher.
That is a very long description for a smell... We are pleased.
White on White? isn't Black on Black better?
7775964
static4.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/3306762+_003b9e3ef79b920fffbace238a16d12f.png
7777078
There will be. If it helps, it'll have four legs, two wings, two eyes, one nose, spleen, liver, and stomach. Two kidneys too!
Fun fact: I always check the blank spots!
With this story starting out in media res after DoH2, and the dream sequences, I'm having a real hard time parsing the timeline.
7783486
Maybe a month after DoH2? Or two? I haven't given it enough thought. It's been a long time since I had a good idea what was going on so I'm sort of figuring it out all over again.
7783610 Wait, what?
Mom bought pregnant mares, so I haven't seen a full equine pregnancy, but I'm pretty sure they don't show after just 2 months? Heck, it's kinda hard to tell until 5 or 6, when they really start getting wide. Think that's what was confusing me.
Until Rainbow conceived a few months before the end of DoH2?
7783903
Yeah I need to work on the timeline, but I was going to use the 11 month pregnancy for horses. I need to figure out where to put the time skips and stuff, at least on humans they don't usually show until the 2nd trimester and feel kicking until the 3rd. It's kind of like picking up a plate of spaghetti I spilled on the floor a year ago when I stopped updating and trying to put it back together.
7784059 I seem to really suck at small details. I just reread the entire series today! Yesterday? Whatever...
I guess it really comes down to how long it took to..craft? his new body and for him to awaken. I think you mentioned him being asleep for a week? Maybe that was DoH3. Or both times. Then how long DoH2 ran, then between DoH3. Maybe the course of DoH3 as well? Though that felt like s/he spent at least 2 weeks awake before the hearing.
Just my thoughts.
I really like your slice of life chapters. You should let yourself do more of them. You're really good at it. Well, you're really good at all of it, but I think your slice of life chapters are my favorite. They flow well and are very entertaining and relaxing at the same time, something that can be difficult to achieve in a culture that craves action and excitement. So thank you for giving us a little slice of life every now and then.
Such a waste of white ink xD
Moar? Plz? *puppy eyes*
Dawn is a great character, but she isn't getting past her encounter with Soarin in a strong, independent way. If I was writing the story, I would have Soarin escape prison the day before execution to find some artifact that lets him adjust the minds of ponies. He could make everyone turn against Dawn and have her banished to the sun in place of him, but he has a better idea; a more fitting payback. He adjusts the memories of the Mane Six and a few others so that he can now have a flock of himself, Fluttershy, Dash, and--you guessed it--Dawn. He plays it cool, Dawn can't convince anyone she isn't his, and Soarin gets some more time with her. And Dash. And Fluttershy.
See, every time Soarin has been mentioned, Dawn just crumbles. The biggest potential you have for her character to overcome an obstacle and thus do more growing is to stand up to Soarin in the end or fight those inner demons. In my example, if, in a scenario where no one is on her side, she is considered a legal 'partner' to Soarin, and Soarin has pretty much won, Dawn comes out victorious, it would further her character in a more diverse way. She needs to remain independent; she can't exist only if her friends give her things to go off of.
My example setup is, of course, crude and quickly made, and I'm sure you can think of a better, more thought out way for Dawn to face those haunting memories. It needs to happen; it'll really help the story.
Is this story still being updated? Or are you just updating whenever ya feel like it
7881272
you also need to remember though how hard it is for people to handle PTSD. They cannot help how they react to triggers. those trigger involuntarily cause them to relive their experiences. Could you really expect anyone to not crumble under pressure when suddenly forced to remember something as traumatizing as what happened here?
8001809
I know it's being realistic and true to life - this is how a victim of sexual abuse would act. Still, sometimes authors have to introduce new conflicts into the mix or at least a new iteration of one. You can't have a story with only one driving issue. Dawn is acting accordingly, but the theme of her being strong willed and cunning has sort of been lost as she has mostly gotten through this all with support of her friends (not a strange behavior for a victim of rape, to be clear). She could benefit from some scenes of her alone in thought.
I just meant that Kaidan should approach the conflict from an angle that keeps with her character, introduce a new conflict altogether, or resolve the issue once and for all since it's been the leading force behind the story and, at least for me, it's losing steam. I meant nothing against rape victims; I actually think the story introduces the concept in a very smart way that makes the reader sympathize. Sorry if I came across as hating ~
Here's hoping for more updates!
I saw it
My first thought was that it was more like "Extreme visibility note" due to my use of the Dark theme.
Then I noticed that hey, you actually considered that.
Unfortunately, I feel this story has been about as subtle as a brick to the face, and too telly about a number of things that should be shown and developed with more subtlety. Examples include the scene with Celestia and the last paragraph of chapter 10, though there are certainly others.
8027843
Look, a Kindred spirit XD
8103827
oooohhhhhh
8104267
What's your favourite colour?
Mine's spring