Broken Fences

by GJT_Productions

Don't Need to Know

"I'll take a double chocolate with sprinkles, and a vanilla milkshake."

"... I'll just have what he's having."

"Two orders of double chocolate with sprinkles and vanilla milkshake coming right up!"

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"What's the matter, Moon Dancer? I thought you'd be happier here!" the pegasus Zodiac asks Moon Dancer, who is sitting across from him in a booth at Pony Joe's donut shop in Canterlot.

Moon Dancer sighs before replying: "Well, it's just that Twilight used to hang out here a lot. I probably could even point out her favorite booth where she and her little dragon companion would study for hours, just munching down on donuts and guzzling coffee. All on Celestia's tab, mind you."

"Bad memories? Yeah, I don't blame ya..." Zodiac replies as he looks around at the relative quiet of the donut shop in mid-afternoon. Except for Pony Joe himself, Zodiac couldn't see another pony in the place.

"I hope my mom doesn't find out I'm here. I think she'd be pissed." Moon Dancer comments when Zodiac returns his attention to her, a forehoof drumming on the table.

"You didn't tell her we were here, right?" Zodiac asks.

"Yeah, I didn't say anything."

"Then we got nothin' to worry about! We'll just have a donut and a milkshake and we'll talk about the future together!"

"Future together?"

"Well, you're not going to go crawling back to your mom, are you? Not after she kept knowledge of that sister of yours secret from you."

"No, definitely not. I'm old enough to take care of myself."

"Yes, you're old enough, but I'm also old enough to help you take care of yourself."

"Well, you've certainly been nicer to me lately than a certain filly I used to look up to..."

"You see? You don't need her, you don't need your mom, you don't need your sister, you don't even need Celestia. All you need is me and my dreams!"

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"Dreams? What kinda dreams?" Pony Joe interrupts as he magically levitates the tray with the order over to the booth where Moon Dancer and Zodiac were sitting at.

"The same dream a lot of pegasi have: joining the Wonderbolts!" Zodiac replies, next making an enthusiastic swooping gesture with a foreleg as Joe lowers the tray onto the table.

"Them fancy flyers, huh? Well, good luck with that." Joe comments as he lifts off each item on the tray to place it in front of the pony that ordered it.

As soon as Joe walks away with the empty tray, Moon Dancer resumes the conversation: "How are you going to swing that, Zodiac? You don't have any particular talent in flying, as far as I know anyway."

"I have 'connections'." Zodiac smoothly replies, saying the last word in a manner meant to be vague on exactly what he meant.

"Whadda ya mean 'connections'?" was the natural skeptical question Moon Dancer posed now.

"I mean connections the way you think I mean them." Zodiac begins to explain as Moon Dancer takes slurps of her milkshake. "You need connections to get anywhere in Canterlot. It's how that wishy-washy older brother of Twilight Sparkle is as high a rank as he is. And I have connections to make me get into the Wonderbolt Academy."

"What kind of...?" Moon Dancer asks again before being interrupted by Zodiac holding up a foreleg.

"You don't need to know the details. Just know that one day I will be a Wonderbolt and you'll have as much money for books as you could ever want. Enough for your own library, maybe even better than Twilight's! Wouldn't that be fun?" Zodiac explains as if trying to sell the idea like a product.

Moon Dancer looks up for a moment, contemplating what Zodiac had to say. She levitates up her donut and takes a bite, her chewing a visual reflection of the chewing going on in her mind. The idea of some kind of revenge in the future is what convinces her, and she finally gives a nod to Zodiac.

"Awesome! We'll run away together! My aunt already has a place for us to lay low for a while, build a new life together!"

"You're sure about this?" Moon Dancer asks one last time.

"You really have an alternative, Moon Dancer?" Zodiac returns.

"No, I guess not. Mostly because I don't want to see Twilight or my mom again!"

"Then meet me at the Canterlot train station midnight tomorrow night. There's a 'Midnight Express' out of the city. I'll be on that train, I hope you'll be too."

"I think I will, Zodiac. I don't give a buck about Twilight Sparkle or my mom or Princess Celestia anymore, anyway. I'd rather run away with you."

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MEANWHILE, IN PONYVILLE...

"MAIL!" a grey, cross-eyed pegasus mare with a mailbag slung across her withers eagerly shouts at the door to the Golden Oak library.

"Thanks, Ditzy. I'll take it off your hooves." Twilight Sparkle says as she walks over to the door from the podium she was reading in front of. Using her magic, she levitates her pile of mail out of the bag, and the mailmare goes on her way.

"'Ditzy'? I thought her name was Derpy Hooves..." Spike, looking over an inventory sheet nearby, comments.

"Ditzy Doo, Derpy Hooves, Muffins... all the same pony. Just don't call her cross-eyed, OK Spike?" Twilight replies with a casual tone as she looks over the bunch of letters being levitated in front of her.

"Yeah, whatever. Anything for me?" Spike asks, still looking at the inventory sheet.

"Looking right now..." Twilight answers as she begins sorting through the pile of mail. "Bill... junk... ugh, Amarezon delayed the order again? I really don't know what's wrong with them... what's this?"

Twilight stops at one envelope, which has an E.U.P. Guard seal on the back face. It usually meant a letter from his big brother, so she felt obligated to at least take a look. Putting the rest of the unsorted mail down, she generates a short "dagger" of magic energy in mid-air that she uses to slit open the envelope.

"Whaddya find?" Spike asks, looking up from his sheet as Twilight starts looking over the letter. He sees Twilight's expression change into a growing unease, then her abruptly crumpling up the letter and tossing into a wastebasket underneath the podium using her magic.

"What's wrong?" Spike asks again, the concern all too evident in his voice.

"Nothing, I thought it was important. You don't need to know the details." Twilight answers, her tone and manner indicating something had rubbed her the wrong way. Perhaps it was something in the letter itself, but more likely is that she just didn't want its contents pricking her conscience.

Spike opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again - he knew that it was generally a bad idea to ask too many questions when Twilight got in that flustered mood she was in now.

"Now where were we... oh yes!" Twilight exclaims, using magic to pick up the unsorted mail and continuing the sorting she had started.

It was thus that Shining Armor's written plea went to total waste, barely even read by its recipient. The problem with Moon Dancer would not be addressed by Twilight Sparkle until much later, and now there was nothing to stop immediate affairs from sliding even further toward disaster...