Pony POV Series Season 5.5/6.5 Side Story: Seven Dreams/Nightmares

by Alex Warlorn

Bright Eyes' Story Part 3: After The Disaster

My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic
My Little Pony Tales
Bright Eyes The Earth Pony
Pony POV Series Side Story Episode 6 of 7
Part 3 of 4
MLP: POV Seven Dreams/ Seven Nightmares
Written By Alex Warlorn
Edited By Kendell2 and Louis

"Fluttershy." Twilight Sparkle looked at the diary unbelieving. "Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack. So all of us were ponies from the erased world too?" She asked in shocked. We could hear her thinking, 'in this mixed souls nonsense.'

We spoke in our regal divine voice, "Elements of Harmony attract Elements of Harmony, it is their nature. No matter the world."

Twilight took a defensive stance, "You are not going to tell me that we all became friends because of something that happened in another universe. We became friends on our own, through our own choices and what we shared and endured through this universe."

Of course she'd defend her friendship, it was what was most precious to her. Now I understand Rota Fortuna's frustration about mortals' perceptions of her.

"We do not seek to trivialize the bonds you have with your friends, Twilight Sparkle. Nor would we wish to. We are saying that if your herd could form bonds in this iteration of reality, what makes you think you couldn't have formed bonds also in its previous ones on your own?"

The little unicorn startled and the aggression vanished from her face at finding out her self-righteousness was being wasted. It always shocks mortals when they find out the big bad goddess is not trying to trivialize their choices.

"Uh, I'm sorry Princess Luna, I... I didn't mean to, to be thinking you were... er. I'm sorry." She made a slight bow."

"You are forgiven, Twilight Sparkle, I understand your words."

Our sister's apprentice looked relieved. "One thing I don't understand."

"Only one thing?" We smirked.

She blushed a tiny bit at that, adorable. "Why were they all so fixated on not leaving Breezie Blossom? They put a lot of work into it, but couldn't they have just made a new garden somewhere else?"

"Dear Pinkamena, you were a farmer once, yes?"

"Yes."

"Explain it to her."

"Twilight, Breezie Blossom was their garden. They couldn't abandon it. They put their heart and soul into that land. Everything that grew there was a part of them."

Twilight Sparkle seemed to understand this.

"So... " Now it was dear Pinkamina's turn to have her say. "I'm not a member of Bright Eyes' family either?" The disappointment of this chapter not giving her the truth clearly visible even if her mane remained poofy.

There was only one chapter left that could give her the answers she seeks.

"Remember, this journal does not speak of who Rainbow Dash was. And maybe it is for the best if that remains a mystery. Tis a very real possibly the pony she was before never even met Starlight and her friends. She could have been Starlight's mother for all we know."

Thank goodness we can not get headaches. "The point tis, my dear Pinkamena, this journal very well MAY NOT contain the truth you seek for your own closure. You may have to be prepared to accept that truth."

The pink Earth pony stiffened. Twilight Sparkle, in spite of her fears that Pinkamena seeking the answers to Pinkamena's past could be destroying the party pony, saw the pain on her friend's face, and hugged her.

"I ..." She swallowed, "I understand."

Understood, but prepared? We'd see.

The little unicorn asked, "Does Fluttershy... after she... she was a Nightmare, does she know about Tiddly Wink?"

"By all rights it shouldn't even logically be her. Since the Breezies left body and soul. And while she saw Pinkamena's hidden memories, those were a special case. And similar names do not mean it she the same pony. There is no proof the Breezie Twinkle Shine is the same as the Twinkle Shine ye knew at our sister's school. But if Ponyville's Tiddly Wink is one and the same, then we doubt Princess Gaia would act any differently if does or does not know. As lost as Fluttershy was in the darkness, she genuinely loved all those under her like they were her own foals."

Twilight looks back at the page trying to shift through the many fantastic truths she's been struck with. "It's so...weird...the six of us are friends... but I'd never imagined Derpy being so tied to Fluttershy. It seems so random. She's never had a close friendship with any of us."

We give a sigh. "As our sister told Zipzee, there were no promises, it is rather beautiful that Fluttershy forged her friendship with Rainbow Dash after all. Just like the friendships Miss Hooves has made with others. Their fates have simply never let them become deep friends."

"Maybe somepony should fix that."

"No Twilight Sparkle. Do not attempt to engineer a friendship. Ye know why our sister never told ye that having friends was the key to saving us from ourselves do ye not?"

"... Because the Elements wouldn't have worked, it would have been shallow and forced."

"If I may intrude in this discussion,
I have my own confession."

We held composure as the ponies jumped. We were wondering when she'd finally speak up. We are not omnipotent. It was the Zebra, Zecora. This had just became somewhat...complicated...

She bowed to me.
"Greetings, Princess of the Night,
I am sorry I gave you such a fright.
I know I asked it of your sister to make my case,
but now that we are face to face,
I wish to give my sincerest apologies to you,
for the trouble my actions did ensue.
I have been a victim of slander's cruel bite,
to heap it on another simply was not right."

"Yes...our sister already told us of your apology, Zecora. Consider it accepted...but truth be told, considering Pipsqueak desired for us to return next Nightmare Night to frighten ponies in jest, we ask you do not cease telling the stories. Just please make it clear that the true us is not to be feared."

"I see and understand this request,
I believe I can do my best."

"Thank you, Miss Zecora."

"So...um...how much did you just hear?" Twilight asked the question we all were thinking.

"We were already on our way when a tornado did occur,
then when I heard you all reading, myself I did obscure."

Our sister is correct, sometimes subtle entrances are best...

I believe Zecora saw Twilight's fear as easily as I did.

"Twilight Sparkle, my friend dear,
there is no reason to fear.
What you have spoken here tonight,
does not give me a fright."

"What?" Twilight asked.

"I may not be in my homeland far away,
but from my religious beliefs I have not strayed.
I already believed in reincarnation,
I knew this was not my first incarnation."

Of course, we had forgotten she was Zebrafrican, many religions in that part of the world believed souls followed an endless wheel until they could achieve enlightenment to be free of it. In reality my brother only lifts his rule of 'you only live once' in very rare, very special situations and not with a new identity (except for Strife's pet project universe with the magical Dragon Eggs, but that was his wedding gift to her).

But we did not tell Zecora that. Our Father has always told us that mortals need not believe He exists to enter into Him, they merely need to be good ponies and sincerely seek forgiveness for their sins. If her beliefs make Zecora desire to be a good zebra to earn a better life after this one, we have no reason to correct her.

That Tirek was able to return to any semblance of life clawing his way back to this world, hanging onto what remained of the Rainbow of Darkness and our own magic, speaks volumes of our former suitor. I wonder if Havoc let Tirek's soul do so as His personal joke on our royal self.

Zecora reached into her saddle bags and produced a rather beautiful purple kimono.

"I believe I now understand the worth, of this gift Pinkie Pie gave on my birth's anniversary.
It is because it was given to me in a past life that still lives in her memory."

Pinkie looked down at her hooves. "I buried my memories of my old friends for so long...I figured I owed their memory that much..."

Zecora donned the kimono, I must admit, it looks quite fetching on her.
"Now that your reason why I see,
this gift is even more special to me."

The mare looks to the lost version of Ponyville that surrounds us.
"I suppose I have known things where this way,
since Princess Gaia's day.
When I discovered this town was not brought from my dreams,
I knew there had to be more than it seems."

Even we were surprised by this. "Zecora, what do you mean?"

Zecora looked to us.
"Ever since my home in Everfree I did make,
a strange form did my dreams take..."

She stated, walking over to a half finished gazebo at the edge of the miniature town...we remember it. We and Discord visited it at the end of her last life.

"I dreamed I was a purple Earth Pony with wisdom unmeasured,
and for that knowledge I was quite treasured.
I lived in a world were conflict was rare,
and society as a whole was quite fair.
One day to me a green pony named Minty came,
asking a peculiar question seemed her game.
I believe the question to me she did address,
was how ponies should make a sign to impress.
But when I came for this sign to see,
a surprise party awaited me.
I was given a set of giant charms I found magical,
and another that was far more practical.
However, both I held dear,
because they came from friends near."

We looked to Twilight Sparkle. A spark of distant recognition was clear in her eyes as Zecora spoke. But from Pinkie Pie's stories or a piece of Minty's soul, we did not know.

Then Zecora tilted the world.

"In other dreams I was a teacher at an Earth Pony school,
but in my teaching I was fair in my rule."

Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle's jaws hung open. They stared at the zebra with large eyes. It seems no matter the world, you'll be there to help Twilight Zecora.

"I chose one day to let my students hold a mock court,
but it quickly stopped being of a mock sort.
A treasured pupil named Starlight I put in as judge,
because I knew she would not let her viewpoint be tainted by grudge.
Of this story you know the rest,
but I can tell more if you wish me to test."

We look in her eyes. We may no longer bear the Element of Honesty, but we still know it when we see it. "...She speaks the truth, these were her dreams." Twilight would have assumed as much, considering we had not gone in detail of Kimono's party in any of the stories we'd read here. But of course, we the Princess of the Night already knew what Zecora's dreams were.

Twilight Sparkle appeared to be trying to make sense of this. "But...how? Kimono was kept over, but she never asked to keep her memories like Pinkie did."

"...Zecora, you are skilled at Zebra Voodoo, are you not?"

"I do not like to brag of my skill,
but I can cure many an ill.
Though I prefer not use that word,
given how it is used outside the zebra herd.

While with my talents any beast that try to breach my home falls,
I do not deal in cursed dolls.

While you all made me an optimist,
I prefer to think of myself as an alchemist.
From the plants that grow,
many a mixture I can sow.
So I believe one could say,
of my kind's magic I know the way."

"I think she knows as much about Zebra magic as I do about unicorn magic," Twilight chimed in. "I don't know of anything she can't cure with it."

"We believe we know the answer, Twilight," We reported as Twilight's statement made the Zebra blush. "Everfree, due to us and our sister's efforts, is a location where nine leylines converge. There are three locations like this in the world, here, a location in Griffin lands and a third in the homeland of the Deer, we don't know their modern names just yet. While the true convergent location is where our old castle is located, Zecora's dwelling is likely close. Zebra, Deer, and Minotaurs, due to the nature of their magic, can all gain incredible knowledge of this world and others. Her proximity to the leylines combined with her affinity for Zebra Voodoo likely enabled her to unlock memories which she should have been incapable of accessing." We shrugged. "Or it could be simply that Ms. Hackney died at the exact moment of the great change so her spiritual state was in flux when the timeline changed. And seeing this imitation of what never was unlocked them."

"All I know is what around us can be seen,
matched what I saw in that first dream.
That is why I came here tonight,
to get my thoughts on it just right.
I had thought this maybe have been a life before this,
your story did not prove me amiss."

"Uh, guys, all this exposition is nice, but we're kind of dragging the story out, and this chapter is going into overtime already," Pinkie explained.

"She is correct, we should continue...Zecora...will you continue to listen?"

"I would very much desire,
to hear more of the life I did once aspire.
While that I might make no discovery from this book,
there is no harm in taking a look."

We nod. "Twilight, Pinkie, is this alright with you."

Twilight looks hesitant, Pinkie nods. "Zecora, are you sure? This...isn't the easiest thing to read."

"Twilight, until now I was not forced to hear this story,
listening to more is no worry.
And I am delighted to know that over and over,
we have proven friends, Clover."

Twilight kept her reactions to herself and nodded as Zecora gently nuzzled her for friendship of three lifetimes.

"...Alright...let us continue."

++++++

After The Disaster

My brain was on fire. No. Too nice, molten magma was being poured into my brainpan! Can't move. Can't think. Can't see. Can't hear. Can't touch. Can't remember. Only pain. Just the pain. The burning, the consuming, doesn't stop. Nothing but ashes, but still it burns. Eating me up. Pain doesn't stop. Pain can't stop. Pain won't stop. I'm melting. Right off my bones. My naked bones freezing. Head still filled with magma. Wanna retch but body won't let me. Nothing in...the universe...except... the pain ...

"Bright Eyes..."

Under the ocean. Drowning. No air. Pressure. So much pressure. Crushing me. Bearing down on me. Please, leave me alone. Water in my lungs. The weight. Pressing. Pressing. Killing me.

"Bright Eyes..."

Desert. Endless desert. Hot winds of sand cutting through me. Hooves sinking into the sand. Trudging forward, always uphill, against the sands. Freezing at night. Burning during the day. Hide cooked and peeling. Endless desert. No end. No beginning. Dry as the sand inside.

"Bright Eyes!"

Darkness. Darkness so deep it's solid. It's everywhere, it's everything, I am the darkness and the darkness is me. Consuming. Crushing. Murky. Hollow. Suffocating.

"Bright Eyes!"

Lance that pierces the darkness. Thread of light. Cutting through the blackness like a sword. White spindle splitting the gloom. Light shines. I am not the darkness.

The thread dances in front of me, I grab onto the rope for dear life. A million dark hooves pulling at me. A snake thing coiling around me. Trying to swallow me! Breath! White knight. Pull me up. Pull me out. Pull me free. Breath! Rising up. Spread my wings and fly. BREATH!

...

Warmth. Peace. Safe. Rest.

++++++

Light.

Want to move.

Can't move.

Feed. Eat. Dark. Sleep.

Repeat.

And it repeated.

White Knight.

Outside with him. Blue sky. Green fields. Cool air.

Books. With words. They fit together. They form ideas and places.

Always with the white knight, with his lance that pierced the darkness.

...did I just think that?

This is not my home.

Where is this supposed to be?

Tractor and combine outside through the window. This is a farm?

Why is the bed so small? This isn't my bed.

Why are there so few books? This isn't my room.

White Knight enters the room. He is my white knight.

We go downstairs.

This is most certainly not my home.

Farming isn't nature. It's one of the hallmarks of civilization.

"She's doing a lot better today." White Knight says to a pink haired mare with a heart cutie mark.

"I'd say a whole lot better, Bright Eyes, can you understand me?"

Understand her? What a silly question. If I couldn't, then I could hardly say no.

Bright Eyes. That was me. My name. Otherwise their eyes wouldn't be pointing in my direction.

"Yeigh-" I began to say, then coughed. She brought me some water. "Yhess. Yes."

"Do you know where you are?"

"A farm."

"Do you know who I am?"

"... ... I should, shouldn't I?" I say sadly. She wouldn't have asked that question if I wasn't.

The stallion held me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. "Bright Eyes, do you know who I am?"

I felt like I was being given a pop quiz for my life I had forgotten to study for. "White Knight?" I couldn't keep the uncertainty out of my voice.

His heart cracked.

I felt mine do the same.

I looked at his cutie mark hoping for a clue for what call him: a fleur-de-lis.

A thought struck me. I looked at my own cutie mark.

I didn't have one.

But! But I was a mare! Not some little filly! My cutie mark! How could I not have a cutie mark?! What was my cutie mark?! I remembered! I had to remember! There was no way a pony could forget something like that! It was impossible unless!

I bring my hooves to my head, "Where is everything-?!"

++++

Sweetheart, as she introduced herself said, "Clover, a friend of ours, once faked losing her memory out of stage fright. Most of us didn't fall for it. But not because she didn't lose her cutie mark. Losing your memory and not your cutie mark isn't unheard of. It..."

"It means the original Bright Eyes is gone," I say. "When ponies go crazy, if their Egos become twisted enough, their cutie marks change to reflect this. A cutie mark emerges when a pony has attained a defining sense of self. It means I've suffered enough brain damage that I've lost myself."

Why did I know that but not who I was?!

Sweetheart nodded sadly. "Yes. When Lancer brought you to the farm, you cutie mark was already gone."

My White Knight, Lancer, sat besides me.

"Why a farm? Why not a hospital? Why not a doctor?"

"I am a doctor," Sweetheart said non-agressively. "And...there's been a disaster. Nearly anything that needs electricity won't work. At all. And there were...a lot of explosions...infrastructure is just gone."

I felt my blood chill, "There was a war?"

Sweetheart shook her head, "No. Not in the least. It was the opposite just before. There was a terrible accident. It wasn't anypony's fault. Nopony knows what went wrong. It shouldn't have happened. Magic and technology just... went wrong."

"Magic is a science." I heard myself say, "It's not like they're acids and bases."

"I know. Nopony knows what went wrong. It all just...broke."

So not only had I lost my memory. I had lost the world too.

Sweetheart asked Lancer to leave, he did so very reluctantly.

She asked me to write down some things. Then look away. And tell her what I had written down. She asked me some simply yes or no questions. Then asked me to repeat them. This went on for what felt like hours.

She asked for Lancer to come back in, it looked like he had been talking with a blue stallion with a comb cutie mark who had a bandages covering one eye.

"Bright Eyes, you have retrograde amnesia. Which refers to lost memories before the disaster. But I can safely say there're no signs of you having anterograde amnesia, so you should have no trouble making any new memories."

That was a strangely powerful relief.

Lancer asked right away, "What about getting her OLD memories back?"

"She has to do that on her own."

"You're joking! What about memory retrieval? Like hypnosis and like that? You can't just abandon her like this!"

"Lancer I'm surprised at you. No, no I'm sorry. Listen...hypnosis? The tricks they use to retrieve suppressed memories? More often than not, all it'll do is create FAKE memories. Innocent stallions have been arrested on testimony of retrieved memories that when looked at later, couldn't have factually ever happened. If anypony puts Bright Eyes in a malleable state and then tries to force them out, all you'll do is encourage her subconscious to conjure up memories to fit the questions you're asking. Memories are like sand. For example, can you tell me which of these two teas you prefer? Just a sip."

She gave him two different cups of tea. He picked one and she gave him more.

"Can you tell me why you like that one?"

Lancer drank more. And he answered.

"Lancer...the tea you've been drinking is the kind you chose not to have."
What? "What? But-but how?"

"Teddy's shown me a few slight of hoof tricks. It's not much, but you basically rewrote your own memory Lancer. We all do it unconsciously. The only pony who can safely bring out Bright Eyes' memories is Bright Eyes. All the rest of us can do is provide the keys and hope she can find a lock that fits. The problem is that magic was involved in this and, I'm no expert at magic."

I saw her eyes drift over to me.

"But I was?"

"...You were very good at Earth Pony magic. Yes."

I waited for more...but she had just given me a key, and I didn't know how to find the lock.

+++

I met Sweetheart's husband Teddy. What a polite stallion, I remembered that Sweetheart mention he had been a bully, it was hard to imagine. I heard him tell Lancer he lost his eye protecting the his family from some type of monsters. How could someone so selfless be a bully? I also met Teddy's cousin, Corny, and his wife Sunflower. Teddy's uncle and Corny's father, while not catatonic, went about his daily routines and choirs in a clockwork daze.

Then there were Sweetheart's foals: Wild Heart. Brave Heart. Lion Heart. Pure Heart.

For politeness' sake, I said nothing, but I think Wild Heart has an attitude problem, while Brave Heart needs to learn to control her impulses. Pure Heart is wonderful, but she needs to learn to speak up for herself more, oh well, she's young. As for Lion Heart...maybe he'll grow into his name, being the only colt in his little herd of siblings I imagine must be a little uncomfortable.

Lancer wanted to leave the farm right away. He said it was best we get back to our home. Sweetheart begged us to stay, saying we'd be safer. Lancer said our family was waiting for us back home, and that we had enough supplies to look after ourselves for now. Finally the both of them compromised on us staying a couple of days to just make sure Sweetheart's diagnosis was correct and I didn't suffer any further symptoms.

I just had to ask. "Why were you so insistent on us staying? Is it that dangerous now?"

"Yes."

"What else?"

"...A friend of ours. Melody. She lost her voice in the disaster. She was a singer."

I cringed. "And?"

"And I told them there was a chance she had brain damage, but I had no way to know for sure. Her sisters decided not to even wait and just assume she was. But I didn't know one way or the other. But the hurt I saw on her face... . I should have insisted they stay to let me figure it out."

"...So you didn't want to tell us I wouldn't be losing more memories, only for me to start losing them every night after we left."

"Yes. Or it to turn out the memory loss is only temporary shock-induced amnesia that will fade, but you and Lancer think it won't."

I hugged her. I couldn't think of any words to say. That's a lie. "Thank you, for caring enough about me. You say we were friends?"

"Yes. You, me, Starlight, Melody, Patch, Clover and Bonbon."

"Please...can you tell me about the others?"

"...Alright. Starlight always believed in keeping a level head, and had a great sense of responsibility, one time-"

And so she told me about our little pony tales.

++++

After several hugs, and promises never to forget each other, Lancer and I headed back to our home. He had a shotgun with him along with a bowie knife. He trusted me with a revolver. He said how the important thing wasn't to use the bullets, but to use the gun. To 'scare' away ponies who knew what a gun was for. And to use the bullets on the 'monsters' who now roamed the countryside. Monsters. 'Monsters' was a term ponies used for animals they feared and didn't understand.

When we had to make camp for the night, I asked him. "When were you going to tell me that we're married?"

He looked at me in shock for a few seconds. "You remember?"

"I'm sorry Lancer, I don't."

He groaned, clearly remembering what Sweetheart said about leading questions. "...You shouldn't keep making assumptions like that... one's going to turn out to be wrong eventually and somepony could use you."

"But you didn't say this one was wrong."

"...No I didn't."

"And you clearly trusted Sweetheart enough to take me to her when I was hurt, I knew she wasn't using me."

"...That's logical..."

"So when were you going to tell me?"

"...Before we got back to the house. I had a few things I knew I'd have to explain first."

"Who is waiting for us?"

He avoided my question with a question. "How did you know?"

"You've been concerned and protective of me from the start. I felt hurt when you were hurt and I know we're not identical twins. That means you were either my husband, a friend, or my brother. Sweetheart didn't find us being together strange at all. So that rules out stranger.

"You've been struggling with being close to me but not being too close. So that rules out family. You weren't possessive of me, so that rules out stalker. You might have just been a friend who was pinning for me and my husband died in whatever disaster happened. But you weren't acting ashamed or hesitant like this was your big chance. And I feel safe around you, the first thing I called you was 'White Knight', which means I felt safe around you before and I remember your voice calling to me. So you must have had some great meaning for me. Oh and our wedding rings are identical."

"Ah."

"Now who is waiting for us, Lancer?"

"...My parents, your parents, any servants who haven't left..."

"We have servants?"

"We HAD servants. We can't pay them now. And...and our daughter, Night Eyes."

It was a knife in the gut. What kind of pony was I, if I could forget my own foal? I narrowed my eyes. "Tell me everything about her."

++++

The world was dangerous now, that was clear from just traveling a few days. Even before I was told what happened to one of Sweetheart's sisters. One night, while we were asleep in our tent, I was awakened by a ripping sound.

I opened my eyes to find two green eyes forcing their way through a tear in the tent. I did the natural thing and screamed Lancer's name as loud as I could.

Lancer was awake in a heartbeat, gun ready...and missed due to firing entirely on impulse. The thing was grey and looked like a bat with huge clawed arms and dark eyes. It leapt on Lancer and he had to use the gun to block a bite. He kept having to dodge the claws as it kept its grasp on the shotgun.

I didn't know what to do...I was so scared. I finally got my wits about me and remembered the revolver and brought it up in line with the creature. But I was no crack shot, and Lancer and it kept moving in the dark, and even if I did shoot it, the bullet might just go through the animal and into Lancer. I tried to get in close shove the gun in at point blank range but it just batted me off.

"Lancer!" I yelled as it grabbed the gun and lunged for a bite...

"Stop!"

It was like someone had taken a picture. The thing stopped, I think its eyes flashed yellow for a second.

I turned and saw a stallion with a rainbow colored mane and tail. His coat was white and his Cutie Mark was of a skateboard.

"They didn't know this was your territory," he told the creature. "Please, just calm down. They'll be gone in the morning."

Territory? I looked at the creature, its teeth, still showing...I recognized them as those of an animal that hunted fish (why do I remember all these facts but nothing about me? Amnesia doesn't work like it does in movies). There'd been a stream nearby. It wasn't attacking us for food but because we'd intruded on its territory.

The stallion proves this by getting a fish from a saddle bag and throwing it to the creature. It caught it in its mouth and let him pet it. "There, you see? None of us wants to hurt you or take your territory."

After the thing (the stallion called it an Ahool) flew off, I helped Lancer up and checked him for wounds. I finally let go of the tightness in my chest. I felt relief wash over me, most of all for Lancer, but I realized I was also glad I hadn't had to shoot another living thing. It hadn't chosen to be this way, it had either been mutated by what-happened or had lost its old habitat from it.

That's when Lancer finally got a good look at our savior.

"Logan? Is that you?" he asked, blinking.

Logan looked us over. "Lancer? Bright Eyes?" he looked at me strange...not angry, not hateful but...hurt.

Lancer must've seen that. "Bright Eyes lost her memory."

Logan's expression softened. "Whoa...that's rough. Sorry...So...uh...I didn't expect to see you out here..." I think part of his changing the subject was awkwardness, but I got the feeling he was a little shy.

"We're on our way to somewhere safe," Lancer replied. He'd already told me not to tell anyone exactly where we were going. "...Thanks, you were a lifesaver. Is your sister okay?"

"Posey? Yeah, she's fine. She was with our grandparents when everything happened... That's where I'm headed."

"And your parents?"

Logan got that hurt look again. "I... I honestly don't know... they were supposed to be at one of the castles cheering for the spell. So was I. But they were running late, and I was running later." He shivered. "When I finally got to the castle, all I found was rumble and ashes and..." He shook his head, "I'm hoping they were late too and they're headed for Posey and my grandparents too. But... "

The poor guy barely managed not to cry.

"Sorry, Logan..."

I decided it was me that should change the subject. "...How did you stop that thing?"

"Oh!...I guess I can show you, we're friends..." He went in his saddle bags and produced a yellow shard of crystal. It was glowing bright, and looked polished.

Lancer's eyes went wide. "Were did you get that?!"

"...I found it while I was looking for my parents...I figured I better take it before someone else did, considering what it can do...I just didn't want to see somepony use it to hurt anyone...I've been using it to help protect ponies from these creatures. It makes the things listen to me...I don't mean like they do what I want, but...I talk and they understand, it calms them down."

Lancer put a hoof on Logan's shoulder. "Good...but be careful...You know what somepony would do for it."

Logan nodded. "I know...Here, let me help you patch up your tent. The Ahool won't bother you again, but make sure you get out in the morning, and try to be more careful where you set up camp."

After he helped us fix our tent, we said our goodbyes and left. "...Lancer, I knew him, didn't I?"

Lancer nodded. "...He was a good friend of the seven of you...you invited him to your club before I was even brought up," he said with a chuckle. "Honestly surprised he didn't end up with Sweetheart, she seemed to like him...guess it wasn't meant to be..."

I nodded. Even though he'd saved us...I couldn't get that look of hurt to stop bothering me.

+++

"Wait...I thought all the ponies who'd gotten the Shards were evil overlords!" Twilight interrupted.

Luna smiled lightly. "Do not forget, it may have been several hundred years before Patch found all the Shards. In that time, many ponies owned them. Logan may have kept the Shard his entire life and it only fell into the wrong hands after a perfectly natural death. Remember, the Yellow Shard was only found after its owner had artificially extended his life far past the normal life expectancy of ponies at the time. And it was just far simpler for Patch to track down those abusing the Shards for power than those who simply used them to help others, as more people were willing to help cast down the former."

Twilight settled. She felt a little silly. "...How could I think there weren't ponies out there who would use the Shards for good reasons? Ponies like Film Critique are an exception to the rule..."

++++

I wasn't prepared. I know he'd said 'servants' but...

"So we live here?"

"Yep. You loved the library when you moved in."

I looked at him, "Sweetheart said not to make subjective statements."

"It wasn't subjective! Believe me. You actually slept in there a few times before Night Eyes was born."

+++

"...Ok, I see why you thought I'd relate to her," said Twilight in a deadpan expression.

Luna could not resist a small laugh. "Truthfully, it was a surprise to us and our sister that you were Clover and not Bright Eyes."

Twilight blushed brightly. "Okay, lets continue."

+++

The place was huge. And so was the land around it.

The buildings had all clearly seen better days. And the gardens looked like they needed tending. But the sheer size was most impressive. Made me wonder if Lancer's family was old money or what. Not that money mattered from everything I had seen on our trip.

From how long ago Lancer had told me the disaster had happened, (or The Day as Corny's family kept calling it), it was absolutely stunning how fast ponies were reverting to barter systems and feudalism. Lancer told me I was hardly the only pony to suffer brain damage from the disaster, Ponyland was full of ponies who various mental damage and fantastic to horrific mutations from the raw magical energy. Including one seapony in a river we crossed who swore she was a pegasus. We didn't know if she was mutated or driven insane.

I knew something was up when Lancer told me not to mention my name when meeting others before we got home.

I knew Lancer was no kidnapper. But he also swore to St. Megan and Pony Heaven that I was not a criminal. He spoke in a way that left no room for arguments he hadn't used before or since.

Our home? In spite of the obvious damage, it was still the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. The swimming pool was a murky mess but I didn't care (I kept thinking of rubber octopi and Teddy for some reason looking at it). I wish I could say it felt good to be home. But for me, it was coming home for the first time.

It was clear he didn't want to leave me all alone, or without anyone else actually. But he kept wanting to go in and explain my condition and arrival first to the family. I made the choice for him.

"Go inside. I swear I'll be fine." I took the shotgun from him just to be on the unironic side. "Please, the sooner this is done with the better."

Finally, Lancer nodded and relented, giving me several glances before going inside.

Then the door opened and out pushed was a mare with a violet mare with a yellow flower cutie mark flanked by two leafs.

"Pink Velvet, please please please make sure Bright Eyes is okay while I explain this to everypony!" The door shut again. I didn't know whether to face hoof or be touched.

We scoped each other out, neither of us looking none too pleased with this.

I couldn't think of a polite way to say it. "Do I know you?"

"Yes, I'm your grandmother." She said flatly.

Okay, I knew that was a lie. I held up my front hooves, "Look, I'm sorry if I ever did anything to hurt you, but I...I can't remember anything."

She looked at me, and looked at my flank, her eyes widened and she took a trot back. "I... " She lowered her head a little, "I'm sorry, Bright Eyes. I wasn't trying to be mean."

"I do know you, right?" I implored.

"...I just work for your husband's family. I'm a housekeeper."

"Have you ever looked after Night Eyes?"

"I thought you didn't remember."

"I don't. Lancer told me. I didn't want my foal's reunion with her mother to start with 'Who are you?'"

"...Once or twice, a few times. Usually you just hired a foalsitter."

"Where is she now? The foalsitter, I mean."

"None of us have seen her since the disaster."

"Can you tell me about Night Eyes?" Lancer had told me, I wanted a second opinion.

"She loves you very much. She loved when you or your husband took her on your various trips. She loved watching the flutterponies perform, she wouldn't stop talking about them the first time. She thinks tiddlywinks is horrifically boring. She's a night owl. Getting her to bed after the foalsitter leaves can be trouble. She enjoys learning about new creatures..."

"But what about her? Not just her tastes and habits, about her."

Pink Velvet clearly hadn't expected that question. I think I may have sounded desperate...not that I wasn't.

"...That's harder to explain. You can't just quantify ponies, Bright Eyes," She said like it some lesson I had refused to learn. "In particular a foal. She's active one minute, then quite as a mouse the next. As long as she's discovering something new, she's happy. I think your husband hasn't left her with a healthy sense of fear. Even now that most of us have left..."

"Most of us?"

"Over half the servants left the estate Bright Eyes."

"Why did you stay?"

"I have no other home. And I have nowhere to go. And your family has always treated me with respect."

"I see...Pink Velvet, thank you. Did you help look after Night Eyes while Lancer was gone?"

"Your mother and mother-in-law mostly did, actually. And Bright Eyes I-I... I'm sorry you've lost your memory. I am truly sorry. It's not fair."

My eyes narrowed. "You mean it's not fair I don't have to appreciate everything that's lost like everypony else."

She startled. "N-no! Miss! That isn't it at all! I swear. It's not that it's... it's not."

Was I always that blunt? I'm afraid to know. "I'm sorry Pink Velvet, I should have never said that. I was wrong."

She looked at me I couldn't read her expression.

"Can you tell me about you now?"

Now she was surprised. She sat down formally, and I did the same.

"Alright. My parents were born on the Isle of Pony. I was born in Manehatten."

+++++

"That Manehatten?"

"Yes Twilight Sparkle, that Manehatten unlike Starlight's Ponyville, the Manehatten you know was rebuilt from their Manehatten. Some ponies see the city as a constant, like Ponyville."

"Like Spike's family?"

Luna gave a nod.

+++++

Eventually, the doors opened. Lancer had been glancing out the windows when he thought I wasn't looking making sure I was okay.

"Thank you, Pink Velvet. Bright Eyes, are you ready?"

"I can't get any readier," I said standing up, "Let's go."

Lancer led inside. Pink Velvet followed closing the door behind us.

Waiting inside were two stallions, two mares, and one filly.

I remembered the descriptions Lancer had given me at my request. This was going to be unpleasant enough, I didn't want to make things worse with a case of mistaken identity.

My eyes were drawn to the filly like a magnet. I wish I could say I felt some mystical connection telling me this was my foal. All I had go on was what Lancer and Pink Velvet had told me.

"Mom?"

What could I do? What could I not do?

We met halfway and I knelt down and hugged her.

"Push!"

"I am pushing buck you!"

"This birth was supposed to be easy!" Said the doctor.

"Shows what you know!"

"I wish Sweetheart could have done this delivery!" Lancer lamented.

"I'm sorry I'm not a good enough doctor for you."

"NOT WHAT I MEANT!"

"Giving birth here, you bucktards!"

"Please, Brights, I'm right here! Nothing is going to happen! I am right here! You want strength, use mine!"

That was when I felt Night Eyes make her grand exit from me, and her grand entrance into the world. Let me see her, let me see her!

"Mom? Are you okay?"

I had a horrible headache, and felt one eye roll to the side as the world spun.

+++

I was led to the couch, and took a quick nap followed a few more, but my family didn't leave my side.

"Lancer?"

"Yes?"

"I remember...I remember Night Eyes being born."

After I gave him a description, he hugged me and cried. I cried too.

Mom. Dad. Lancer's parents. I met them all on that couch.

I didn't have any other flashes of memory. But that was actually okay. But that moment proved beyond all doubt, that my memories were there somewhere. And I was going to find them. Even if I had to collect them one piece at a time. Maybe now that I had cracked the dam, maybe the rest would be easier to find. I could hope.

And I won't lie...there was a certain joy that came with the fact I could remember giving birth to my daughter. I think I did cry a little bit.

I hugged my parents as they welcomed me home. We were all staying at Lancer's estate now. It was safer than being separate and scattered they had reasoned.

Lancer's mother, Rapier, kept hoping for the army to swoop down and save us all at any moment now. The rest of us had concurred those chances were slim to none. She kept figuring out how to best ration our supplies. Which we apparently had a lot of. When I was shown the basement, the vast amount of preserved goods impressed me. Lancer's family collection of weapons was mostly medieval weapons, (of course) but they had a few modern ones in storage for hunting trips. I actually felt a strong sense of revulsion and disgust at the mention of the latter. But logic now told me that hunting might be essential for survival. Lancer insisted I learn how to use a gun, and some of the medieval weapons, just in case.

"...I've learned this before, haven't I?"

"Uh..."

"My muscle memory is too good with these for me to have never held a sword before."

"...Ok, you volunteered to learn so we could bond a bit, since this stuff runs in my family."

"Ah...Then get me something lighter to start, my muscles aren't strong enough yet to hold a broadsword."

My mother, Eye Shadow, hadn't given up hope that ponies would recover from this horrific disaster. She had actually converted to my faith on the spot and begun praying for pony civilization to survive this horror, more so than her own survival.

Lancer's dad, Fencer, was trying to figure out how we were going to survive. How to obtain leverage for ourselves so we weren't treated as easy pickings by raiders and such. Historically, the well-off and the despised are always the first targets whenever law dissolves.

And I learned how Lancer and Sweetheart had learned about what had happened to the rest of our friends. They said simply 'pegasi' spreading news. But news that custom and that concise?

Melody had indeed lost her voice and her family had begun building a new home for themselves near an Earth pony exclusive village.

Starlight was ashes, apparently like a friend of Patch's, Princess Rosy, they'd been near the very center of one of the blasts.

Bonbon had lost half her family, and was now looking after her own niece. And talked about writing down everything that was happening so it wasn't all just forgotten. She was actually making it pretty well compared to most ponies, she was holding onto the vestiges of a normal life.

Patch had been at Paradise Estate when the blast happened. And was now looking for the fragments of the 'Rainbow of Light' scattered across the globe. As part of a 'quest' like she was some fairytale hero from the days of yore. Given the world's state, maybe she even had a right to be.

Paradise Estate...the place where the Rainbow of Light came from.

Rainbow of Light, a source of powerful, powerful magic.

I felt a minor headache, incomplete and faded images of several pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies flashed through my mind, all friendly, all open, all just wanting to be friends. A blue pegasus, an Earth pony with a magic wand cutie mark, and... an unicorn on roller skates?

I asked Lancer.

"That's Wind Whistler, Magic Star, and Glory, they ...they were ponies you got to know when you visited Paradise Estate."

Paradise Estate. A place where ponies I knew were. I knew ponies from the place the Rainbow of Light that Patch was now looking for came from. Lancer said the Rainbow had been scattered in the disaster. What a pity. I'm sure it would have had the power to fix up everything.

Lancer showed me a picture of us all at Sweetheart's sweet sixteen, pointing out who was who. I felt my blood pressure rise for some reason looking at Patch. I felt my heart ache at Starlight.

Clover. Clover? She was round about the only pony of our little herd of friends who had turned out luckier than me. Not only had she not lost any members of her family (unlike the rest of us minus me, in fact no on at the estate had died), she herself had come out of the disaster without any damage to her mind or body. According to Lancer, Clover was extremely lucky but klutzy as a filly. That last one didn't make much sense, if she was a ballerina, and a respected one apparently, how could she be a klutz?

SO how did Lancer really learn all this? If you've got to know I'll tell you.

"Thanks, I wouldn't have known where to take Bright Eyes if not for you, thank you." Lancer spoke on the roof of the estate to the glowing orange pegasus. She shined like the million other stars that were already out.

"It was the least I could do. You're all Patch's friends, after all. No one deserves to not know what happened to their friends ..."

"Like Patch doesn't know about you?"

"PLEASE don't tell her!" Tears were in the pegasus' eyes. "If she doesn't know then maybe she won't hate me."

"She doesn't hate you now."

"You don't know that."

"Neither do you."

"... Please, let me be the one to tell her when I have to. I can't bear the thought of..."

"You really do care about her."

"Yes I do. Whatever happens to her is my responsibility. I need to face up to that... "

"It wasn't your choice not to see her."

"I should have known what would happen when I wouldn't say there wasn't a civilization of flightless ponies below the clouds. And three 'imaginary friends' I insisted were real. On top of being a mutant night-light. It was my mistakes that kept her from seeing me when she looked for all those years. I need to do it when I feel right."

"...Alright, Brightglow, if I meet Patch, I won't breath a word about you, I promise."

"Thank you." She nuzzled him. I felt my coat bristle. "I hope you all find happiness." She flew off like she was a shooting star.

"Hi, Lancer."

"Bright Eyes!"

"Heard you leave your room and saw you head for the roof, thought you might be lonely."

From the looks on your faces, you're hoping to skip the 'almost misunderstanding between couple fight.' Alright. I will. Because I never thought for a moment that Lancer was being unfaithful.

But I did ask why he was meeting Brightglow in secret. Turns out he wasn't. She just preferred flying and meeting at night when she'd be mistaken for a shooting star by predators and trouble makers on the prowl. Patch and Brightglow had been friends before the tribes even knew about each other.

I was on a bed at Paradise Estate, Wind Whistler reasoning with me, helping me see both sides of the coin. Helping my spread my wings and fly away from my own flat earth.

Oh, and Lancer might have saved me from falling off the roof when I suffered another memory flash, I wasn't really paying attention and might have imagined that part. Might explain the mental image of him in white barding fighting a skeletal pegasus to the death over my soul.

The point is that this proved that recovering my memory of giving birth to Night Eyes wasn't a fluke! I could do it, even if it was one piece at a time.

The whole family celebrated at this. Happy to know my memories weren't lost forever. Sure, we'd been happy before, but this was PROOF.

Dad had been inspired by Brightglow's example and had set up a news courier network with pegasi he had made friends with before the disaster. It worked, ponies hadn't forgotten that information was as vital a survival tool as any other. He hoped it'd be the leverage we needed to remain alive.

The fact we were sitting on top of a storehouse of supplies was the family secret. We had no delusions of what would happen if word got out on how well-stocked we were. There wouldn't be enough bullets in Ponyland to keep the hordes away.

++++

"What a selfish family of ponies," Twilight said.

"Twilight, by their value you should not judge,
and it is not like you to hold a grudge."

"What? Zecora? Don't judge them by my standards? It's clear cut that ponies around them were starving, and they were hiding all that food just for themselves? They were as selfish and self-centered as the most rigid unicorns during the three tribes era!"

"Do not think such things in black and white.
Good verses evil, this was not that kind of fight."

"I'm sure that's comforted the ponies who starved to death within travel distance of their big pretty manor!"

"Big yes, but pretty no more.
It was not as grand looking as it was before."

"That's not the point! The point is that they had more than enough to feed themselves, and several around them didn't! And they kept it to themselves. That is the definition of greedy and selfish."

"Twilight I know your emotions are hot.
But the Element of Generosity, you are not."

"What?"

"All us to explain, Lady Zecora," Princess Luna injected, and looked the mortal pony in the eyes, "Twilight Sparkle. Lady Rarity understands that being generous is not simply about hoof-outs. Giving more than is expect of you, giving to those in need without a return to yourself, yes these are acts of generosity. But having more than another is not a crime unto itself, or a flaw to be corrected. Down that path lies the land of Nightmares. Read further Twilight Sparkle, and you may find these are talents they did not simply bury in a field inactive."

+++++

Hearing Night Eyes say it was mean to let other ponies starve was crushing. Pink Velvet watched her to make sure she didn't do something foolish.

Lancer was left explaining to Night Eyes why we weren't simply hoofing out our stockpiles to the ponies less fortunate. Having to explain to her that they wouldn't see us for giving what we had, only holding onto what we didn't. Desperation does things to pony's logic. Why couldn't we be better than this? What needed to change for us to change at our cores?

None of my family was stupid. We knew the food wouldn't last us forever. There was plenty of wild grass around. So technically they wouldn't starve to death. That thought spiraled a headache. This time of fishing in a forest full of grass, me a teenage filly, lamenting that we were going to starve if we didn't catch anything.

I asked Lancer about it, he said it was during a nature expedition he wasn't along for but had heard about, with me looking for a bird's nesting ground that might have been extinct, but I believed wasn't. Turned out it wasn't, and I managed to get its home protected. Yes it made me proud to hear that.

That didn't stop me from thinking about how humiliating it must be for so many ponies reduced to eating grass after a lifetime of ham sandwiches and breakfast bars.

None of my family was stupid. We knew the food wouldn't last us forever.

"Don't worry Bright Eyes, your old man is old, but he's not THAT old! He's got a plan!" My dad told me. "I've talked about it with Lancer's parents. They know business. And I know how ponies tick."

"Really?"

"Sure, you don't own and run the newspaper for Ponyville for decades without picking up some hints."

"Wow. Daddy, it's so big! And noisy!" I covered my ears. The big machine really was noisy.

"Well, there are lots and lots of papers that need to get printed Brights, and its not just Ponyville's news paper, there are local magazines and smaller businesses who rent out our printers."

"It's all made with recycled paper right?"

Daddy reached down and ruffled up my mane. "Heh. That's my little Brights, always caring about our environment."

This time I didn't fall over, and managed to catch myself. Even if each one was only a grain of sand on a beach. Each memory was precious to me. Each one was a piece of my stained glass window.

Mom saw the future, and mom saw that like it or not, Earth Ponies were going to need agricultural support. And just having canned foods, once priceless works of art, and a small collection of ammunition and guns wasn't going to sustain a family forever.

Dad's feathered friends were willing to help, it was their survival too after all, but they were also being pressured by gangs of pegasi who were beginning to extort earth pony farms for fair weather...and switching out to vicious extremes for ponies who didn't want to pay tribute. While unicorns were niching out their own market since electronics couldn't work, their magic was the next best thing and everypony knew it. I really didn't like where this was going as the years went on.

The plan? I can't complain because it worked.

Blind transactions were possible in a barter system with no currency and no electronic transfers. You just need to be a little bit more creative about how you do it. And like any good retailer, hide your suppliers. Make sure your customers trust you. And never ever give away your trade secret.

And yes, we did sneak out supplements to families we trusted not to blow the whistle. Including Bonbon's and Melody's families. And yes, both of them carried a few more keys to my memories. I remember a starlet who needed to learn humility and became a stronger pony for it. And a butterball who got a perfect score on a test where even I missed some answers, helped her find her missing diary the same day without hesitation (unlocking a humiliating memory of being locked in a book store), and for Bonbon to ultimately confess to cheating on the test to take a retest. I can't remember if I was ashamed or relieved or impressed for Bonbon.

And I had my own part to play.

"Thanks again," I said as we loaded the last water proof container.

"Any friend of Melody's is a friend of ours! Shoo-be-do! Shoo-shoo-be-do!"

At least our former pegasus found some new friends (including our ex-foalsitter who Night Eyes maintains a strong friendship with, she always gives me the cold shoulder though).

And that wasn't all. Pets did not die out. In fact, animals were now even more valuable in some ways. Beasts of burden to till the crops, dogs for hunting or protection, and birds to carry messages or scope out the area (amazing what they could be trained for). Some ponies had even managed to train some of the monsters that now roamed the world. Of course some people managed to find time for pets just to have companionship, ponies were herd animals, we craved it by our nature...

One of a neighboring farm's dogs was injured fighting off some kind of creature with its master...Lancer had gone to see the commotion, I went in disguise. I saw the slash marks on the poor thing...

They brought back memories of healing, animals whose lives relied on me. I was a vet? That actually explained quite a bit.

I went to work healing the poor thing with the knowledge that had come back to me. It was strange...it was like I could feel its life as I worked on it. It was like something awakened in me. It helped guide me as I stitched the poor thing up.

As we left the farm, I noticed something had changed. I could...feel everything around me. The crops, the trees...the LIFE. It was like I was connected to it all...

I told Lancer about it and he explained it was the Earth Pony Magic I'd learned...I began refining it, figuring out how it worked.

And combined with my skills as a vet, I began to heal animals around us. You know, it's weird. Looking back, I realize it probably helped make us 'too valuable' to be threatened...but that thought hadn't crossed my mind back then.

Pink Velvet was used to working with plants, so while a transition, it wasn't a painful one.

Meanwhile the lavish bathrooms were next to useless, nature's call meant going outside.

As we bartered for farming supplies and equipment, along with smithing tools. The age of the gun was fading. Enjoy it while it lasts.

One of the amazing things? Is how much something else helped.

Faith was one of the few things we ponies had left. And we made a point to always celebrate Christmas every year no matter the circumstances. Be it rain, shine, or griffons. It might have been the end of the world, but we weren't about to deep six our beliefs. And it gave all of us the strength to move forward. And believe in a tomorrow.

++++

Pinkie Pie couldn't help but clap in glee at the book's mention of the holiday.

++++

Most of mom's old talents outside of the home didn't have much use now. So she adapted. Like any good pony does.

We had a visit from a Pony I honestly never expected to see.

"Hi guys, any of you seen Starlight?"

She was with a white stallion with a blue mane and what might have been a football cutie mark, maybe. She introduced him as her husband, Buddy.

She hadn't aged a day from the pictures. Maybe. She also now had scars and was more muscular, and she had been athletic before. She carried some weapons and equipment. For some reason seeing this made my jaw drop.

We welcomed Patch in with open arms. And she'd always ask about Starlight, like it was a mental tick. I wonder how much she meant to her, but there wasn't any endearment behind the question beyond a friend.

"I was told Starlight died."

"She's just hiding, or is off somewhere, or maybe she was kidnapped, or maybe-"

When I asked for concise information on why she thought Starlight was alive, she'd always switch topics. Was she hiding something from me? But the way she treated Starlight was alive like a fact, made me wonder. If Starlight was alive, I hope Patch found her.

"So you really have lost your memory?"

"I've recovered bits and pieces, but the majority is just missing."

"Heh," she said friendlily, "That means after I found the pieces of the Rainbow Light and Starlight. I can prank you all over again to jog your memory!"

P-prank.

"Bright Eyes? Are you okay? I was just joking."

Prank!

"My pie!" The Bonbon on the small classroom TV lamented, the video marked for her science project NOT what Bright Eyes had recorded.

The present Bonbon tried to spontaneously will herself out of existence as the class laughed at the recording.

I tried to spontaneously develop pyrokinesis and cause Patch to burst into flames!

"Bright Eyes! What is this?!" Ms Hackney asked not in the least amused.

The student who laughed the hardest was Patch, the look of pride on her face unmistaken.

My recording! That that-

"YOU!" I snarled and chased her around the room, then through the house, then in a circuit around the estate, then she ran up the near sheer wall of the house outside to get away from me.

Lancer and Buddy finally got a hold of me as I tried to climb after her.

"Hey!" Patch shouted from her perch. "Does this mean you remember more now?"

I startled. And laughed. "Yes! Yes it does!"

I remembered me and the others trying to teach Patch a lesson about practical jokes. Cautiously Patch got down and we hugged and joked.

I explained to Night Eyes that mommy and her friends were just playing tag.

And yes, it made me happy.

Of course they ultimately left. Patch made it clear she was visiting because she cared for each of us, and hoped we knew where Starlight was of course. And where Patch went, Buddy followed. We told them Logan had the Yellow Shard, but given we had no idea where his grandparents lived or if he was even there, it wasn't much help. Patch was just glad someone was actually putting it to good use.

Patch ended up becoming pregnant and taking a break from her quest...she had to leave her son with Buddy while she continued the quest solo. I wish her luck.

And every night I had seen Patch and Buddy together, I saw Lancer go to his bedroom alone. He hadn't asked, not even once. He never even asked for our bedrooms to be close. But I felt it was better for our bedrooms to be nearby, for Night Eyes' sake. Our foal didn't need to think more on why her parents weren't sleeping together. Night Eyes knew what I lost, but she didn't need to think her parents were separating.

I could see the longing in his eyes, the loneliness he didn't want to admit was there. It didn't matter if most of my memories were ghosts, and I couldn't even remember our first kiss, when he (or I?) proposed, our wedding day, to him, I was still his Bright Eyes. Was I? I don't know if what I felt was imprinting from our 'first' meeting at Sweetheart's, or my feelings for him surviving in a void with no memories to hold onto.

And he never 'offered?' Offered? Don't be absurd. I always knew his door was open if I was willing. And I knew there was no way he'd ever ask it of me. Not when I couldn't remember him, remember us.

I know the coldness it must have left for him. But I couldn't just go to him out of guilt. I don't know if I couldn't ultimately go through with it if I couldn't remember him.

When that guilt hit me...when I questioned all this...It scared me. And I don't know if it was just that I couldn't remember or if...I just had this feeling someone or something was lurking over my shoulder during those moments. Was this what Lancer felt? Some primal fear of being alone? Like I was in a horror movie and the ghost was right behind me, just waiting for me to turn out the lights...But there was never anything there but my own heart's shadow when I looked back.

But Lancer was determined to build new memories for us if that's what it took. He didn't leave my side. He was always there to help. Maybe I felt a tiny bit babied, but I know he was only there to help. That's just the way we ponies are, we accept the feelings behind the actions.

I am a selfish pony.

The first night I spent in his room had nothing to do with him. It had to do with me.

Memories don't follow standard logic. They have their own rules. And no matter what ponies think: conscious thoughts to ourselves do not reveal how our subconscious works.

I had spent the afternoon playing with Night Eyes, helping out how I could around the house. A game of hide and seek (she was at that age when this would be the last time we'd play this game) I had found a little taped together notebook in one of the vast mansion's storage closet's in a box with crude yet concise but poorly spelled printed hoof writing, describing the rudimentary behavior of seemingly random animals.

I had put it back and hadn't paid it mind. The day passed as all days do and I went to bed.

I wrote down the actions of the poor animals in the big cages. Okay they were behind fences with grass and rocks inside and didn't have a roof, but they were keeping the poor animals trapped and that's what made them cages!

I knew if I wrote down how miserable the animals were being trapped and imprisoned and held captive, I could show it to my daddy and he'd print in the news paper how all the animals in the zoo should be set free!

So they could forage and hunt in the wild like animals are supposed to.

Reward? Don't be silly! We all have to do our part to help Mother Nature!

I might have had to get separated from the rest of the class, but it was okay.

The teacher had more important things to worry about, like Sweetheart, and (what was that filly's name? Scratch?), trying to climb into one of the cages and Bonbon and Clover being scared stiff of the lions and bears. Why couldn't the other students be like Starlight? She always listened and behaved. So much so, that some foals didn't like her that much.

Well, that's the last animal. I better get back to the class. Uh, how do I do that? Maybe I should ask an adult, but my parents said never to speak to strangers. Uh-oh.

I go where the class was before, they aren't there. This isn't nice. I go to the front gate. They aren't there. Where are they? They'd wouldn't leave me behind right? I'm a good filly. They don't leave good filly behind, do they? I am a good filly right?

I see some older fillies from my school, and I quickly trot over to them.

"Uh, Hello. Excuse me, I'm Bright Eyes, I'm lost, do you know where my class is?"

They stop talking to each other and look at me like I was some kind of pest.

One looked at me, she looked at me like, like, I dunno! Like I had asked the dumbest question in the world.

"No. We don't know where you class is, what makes you think we'd even know where your class is, you dumb brat? If you didn't want to get lost, you shouldn't have wandered off to chase some cotton candy, we're busy."

Dumb? "Huh? I wasn't chasing cotton candy! I was making notes on how all the animals here are unhappy and should be set free, see?" I offered my notes like a good filly to show I wasn't lying. The others looked like I was shoving dirt in their faces, but the big filly who had spoken grabbed the note pad from me. "Hey!"

She read through it. And said, "I've gotten say, this is incredible, this is amazing... This has GOT to be the most retarded thing I've ever read!"

Retarded? Me? "W-what?"

"These animals are here because they're ENDANGERED stupid! Oh sure! It's SUPER CRUEL how they have access to vets, daily food, and protection from hunters and predators! It's totally heartless! Doctors making sure their entire litters survive instead of half dying. How can ponies be so unfeeling towards animals? Did your parents drop you on your head when you were a baby? A lot? How can you think these things and have the brain power to write down words?! A brat as retarded as you belongs in a special ed class!"

She tore the pages out. I begged her to stop through my hiccups. I was crying and my nose was running. I was stupid. I was retarded.

"Seriously, it's foals like you that prove ponies have been separated from natural selections and are dooming the species!"

I was a bad filly. I was a bad filly. I was a bad filly.

"You should find a corner to hide in and die."

I curled up and kept crying.

"Saddle Bag, you over did it," said another of the older fillies.

"GOOD! High and mighty brats like her that don't have a clue what they're talking about disgust me! The fewer of them the better! Maybe she'll think twice before preaching again!"

They left, suddenly beating hooves fast. I didn't mind. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to be all alone. I was just a dumb bad filly. The teacher found me a few seconds later. I couldn't answer her. All I could say was that I was a bad and stupid filly.

I woke up in the middle of the night, terrified. I was an adult. I was at home. I was safe. I wasn't retarded. But I was scared, and I was alone. I went to Lancer's bedroom.

"Bright Eyes?"

"Lancer, please...can I sleep here tonight?"

"What happened?"

"Can I?"

"...Of course you can."

I told him what I had remembered. I knew I was being absurd. And I knew I was being selfish. This wasn't for him. It was for me. But recalling that memory made it feel like it had just happened. I needed comfort. I needed not to be alone.

He never laid a hoof on me that night.

We slept in the same bed the next night, and the night after that.

It just felt, wrong to go back to my own bedroom after that. Like I would have just used him as company after one foalhood memory had made me uncomfortable, then just abandoning him again.

And he never once brought up the subject of what some would say could only logically come next.

For three months we were like that. Our parents were all happy that we had taken this step together. With the end of the world, this step towards something that could be considered normal was a gift.

And I knew. Lancer would never ask. He'd never demand. He'd never beg. He'd never request. He'd wait until Pony Hell froze over for me.

And never even once, did he look at another mare.

If he is not a fairy tale white knight, then none have ever exist.

Finally, I whispered in his ear after the sun had set and we were alone. "Lancer, help me remember how we brought Night Eyes into the world."

No. I am not giving you all the sultry details thank you very much! There are things a mare keeps private even after the end of the world! Suffice to say, Lancer is indeed a stallion.

But at the moment that night where flowers bloomed, and lightning pierced the heavens, so much came to me.

"You may kiss the bride."
-
"Bright Eyes, will you marry me?"
-
After finally losing our rather unstealthy well-meaning friends and stealthily Patch, Lancer and I held each other close looking up at the moon. Neither of us said anything we both kissed at the same time.

"So you really went through all this just to make sure we'd make up with Teddy so Sweetheart wouldn't cancel her own birthday?" I hadn't expected Lancer to do something as shrewd as trap us on a boat until we signed a peace treaty.

"She's a friend. Just like Teddy. Just like all of you. Birthdays only come once. They're too wonderful to ignore or skip over."

"Uh, about what I said on the yacht with everyone about me knowing everything?"

"Already forgotten."
-

"I'm happy we won, Lancer. I really am. But we only really won that roller skate competition because you're so good, Lancer."

"Are you kidding?! You went from a crashing into things to being graceful as a swan in minutes! I've never seen a pony who learned anything so fast! You're special, Bright Eyes. And don't let anypony ever tell you different!"

In the morning, I told Lancer everything I had remembered. He was overjoyed. He said he didn't care if I remembered anything else, no wait, he didn't mean that he didn't care about me recovering my memories, he just meant it was wonderful I had gotten back memories that were so important, not that he didn't think memories without him were NOT important and-- At this point I told him I understood and kissed him.

Little did I know the surprises in my life were far from over, and I shouldn't count on being able to stop for breath between them for a good long while.

++++

"HOWDY, BRIGHT EYES! SORRY WE COULDN'T COME SOONER!" Said the unicorn on roller skates at our front door.

"It's...been far too long since we've seen you. Sorry that... that we were unable to visit sooner." Said the bluish unicorn with the four diamond cutie mark.

+++

"So I says to myself, 'The others are doing a good enough job of keep the monsters from escaping their confinement. Others have left the estate before, maybe it's about time I do so myself. I can't wait too long or I might not have friends waiting for me anymore.' Thanks for the tea. You sure you don't have any soda? Too bad! So I made the decision to leave Paradise Estate, and surprise, surprise! Sparkler is willing to give up living forever too! And right when Paradise Estate is likely the best place to be. If you don't count the huuuuuuuge ring of monsters that just won't leave us alone right now. But we have an unspoken promise that we're all free to leave when we chose to!"

"It would have been... selfish to let her leave the estate all by herself," Sparkler got a word in edgewise.

"Ain't she generous? So I was thinkin', you gals were all great friends, then this big blamo happens, and we're stuck fighting monsters who don't know when to quit! Not helping ponies at all! And I thought to myself 'that ain't right!' Why yeah we don't pretty don't we? Thanks for askin'! The magic of the Rainbow of Light is gone, so the 'get lost if you're a bad pony' spell is gone too, but me and Sparkler don't really seem to be aging yet, or any of the others at the estate. Wind Whistler thinks we've been dosed with the Rainbow's magic for so long that it's natural to us now. But then she goes and ruins it by sayin' that we're bound to start aging again sooner than later! But the rest at the estate are fine, Ember's still a foal. Thinkin' about you, Bright Eyes, and the fun we had, I thought it was best we drop by you. I tried to convince Medley to go, but she didn't wanna."

"I really hope we aren't intruding. We know how harsh things are right now, we promise to pitch in our share. I know you don't have much need for parties, but I know I can still help."

"Don't worry, Sparkler, of course we're not intruding! We're friends! And of course we're going to pitch in! Don't worry about it! Gettin' through them monsters wasn't easy, but it sure was fun! Except for the almost dying part of course. Glory spent half the siege line break clinging to me like a 'fraidy-cat and screamin' like a little colt."

"I DID NOT! You made that part up!"

"Just havin' some fun, Sparkler. Oh and don't worry none 'bout the monsters. They're way more interested in Paradise Estate than us personally I think. Sometimes I wonder what the Moonchick was thinking when he built that place...if he built it. We never really asked. After the disaster there were just so many more monsters, I mean out of nowhere! Including some we'd never seen before! And it wasn't just that, the weather went weird in places too, Wind Whistler and the others could barely keep up!...A lot of friends decided they had to find a new place to live. Some crossed over the rainbow to Megan's world and assimilated there. Well, a human world at least. I hope everything works out for them. A lot went to the magic world that Glory visited that one time. Nobody was saying she just dreamed the whole thing after that!"

"Glory?"

"Yes, Sparkler?"

"YOU ARE GLORY!"

"OH!... RIGHT!... It's just... got a little caught up and... and... I'm sorry, Sparkler."

++++

"Sparkler... Amethyst Star! Princess Luna, this Sparkler, and the Sparkler from Canterlot, are they related?"

"We do not have a log book of every bloodline of every pony from Paradise Estate Twilight Sparkle. And 'Sparkler' is a common enough unicorn name. And that would mean that Lady Amethyst Star and Lady Rarity Bell are related if it were true."

"Ooooh! THAT WOULD BE COOL!"

"You mean headache-inducing, Pinkie Pie."

"Don't be silly, Twilight Sparkle, all ponies are related if you go back far enough."

"Tis true my little ponies, and zebra."

++++

"So with so many monsters. I asked King Rudolph if it was okay if the different peoples migrated to his world that couldn't find a niche in Megan's world but still wanted a new home. It took a lot of talking, a lot of convincing, and even more convincing for his people to let them all in, but they all managed to find their niche. You know... it was kinda foalish really. But I really hoping I could find out what happened to my daughter after she left the Estate. Baby Glory. I wanted her to have her own life. See what wonders the world had outside the Estate. But... it was kinda a silly dream wasn't it? I don't even know if she had any foals after she left."

Sparkler hugged her.

"Don't worry Glory, she was your daughter, she'll have done okay, I know she would have."

She sniffed. "T-Thank you Glory. Oh! Oh look at us! Talking on and on about ourselves! That isn't very friendly at all! Please Bright Eyes, how have you been? We were all so worried after the disaster happened. I was impressed Firefly and the others were able to find out news about all of you! There we go about me again! Sorry! Sorry! So tell me please, how has your family been doing? I-I can't really think of how to ask these questions, I'm sorry. You do look wonderful by the way! What do you mean you lost your memory? You can't have forgotten Everything! Bright Eyes? Don't you remember me? At all? Magic Star? Wind Whistler? Bright Eyes? Brights? What's wrong with her? Oh she's done this before? When she remembers things? That's wonderful! I'll get her a pillow."

+++++

"So," Glory asked shyly laying on the couch beside me, "What memories did I wake up?"

"I remember falling on the grass a lot, and I remember you teaching me. I had no idea what the names of the blue pegasus or the yellow earth pony were in my memory. All I remembered was talking with them. Thank you."

"You're welcome. It wasn't easy getting here...even without the monsters... . I never thought I'd have to fight another pony."

"What do you mean?"

"...The..." She stopped herself. I knew that look. She was trying to think of what to say. Or rather, she was thinking of what not to say. "Turns out there are some ponies who blame me and my friends for.... for the disaster."

"What? Why would they?"

Sparkler verbally swooped in, "Because ponies when faced with disasters and great catastrophe, need someone to blame. You can't blame an explosion, you can't hate it, you can't lynch, it you can't... you can't try to...to violate it. An explosion doesn't care if you hate it or not, it doesn't have a face you can hate. So they have to give it a face."

I said, "A lot of ponies hate unicorns now because of the spell magic involved in the disaster. And others hate Earth ponies because they think they were being greedy with magic. I've heard from my dad's network of friends."

Glory nodded. "Yeah...it's, I just can't get my head around it. Ponies hating other ponies? Just for being different ponies? How does that even work?"

"Ponies are angry they've lost so much, they need to hate something, and Sparkler is right, they can't hate an explosion."

"Hopefully it'll all blow over once they see how much they need each other to live." Glory said. "After all, if the Ice Orcs and the Lava Demons who freeze or melt if they try and shake hands, can still be friends, then it should be easy-peasy for different ponies."

I really hope she's right. I suddenly felt very sick. It wouldn't be the last time. I began filling ill in the morning on a regular basis.

+++

Once we figured out I was pregnant, I was taken off any sort of work detail and Lancer wouldn't take no for an answer from anyone. His behavior also unlocked a memory of Teddy doting on Sweetheart when she was pregnant.

This gave me a chance to sit and think, sit and observe and well, sit. But you'd be surprised what you can pick up just by silently observing.

I noticed the glares that Glory and Sparkler got from not only the other workers but occasionally our other family members.

Night Eyes, as it turned out, had met Glory and Sparkler once when we had taken her to visit Paradise Estate. It had been years ago, but she managed to at least recognize them as ponies from the 'magical pink house.' It added a bit more brightness to her life, and all I could add to it the better.

And her curiosity was sparked wondering if the newest light in her life due in eleven months would be a colt or filly.

Every new life wasn't a new mouth to feed, it was a defiance against the dark message whispering at the back of my head that Ponykind was doomed. We would live.

Now that we were about to bring our second foal into the world, I knew what I had to speak with Lancer about. I chose to ask when we were in the privacy of our bedroom.

"Lancer? Are you keeping secrets from me?"

He startled, looked at me in surprise, then sighed. "Yes."

"And those secrets are about me?"

"Yes. They are."

"You never spoke about what my job was before the disaster at all. I know I wasn't a housewife."

"Even losing your memory, you're still the most brilliant pony I've ever known, Bright."

"Flattery will get you everywhere. Lancer, I love you, that hasn't changed, I trust you. What I want to know is why you've been hiding parts of my past from me when I've struggled so long to piece myself back together."

"... Not all memories are good ones. Not all the pieces of ourselves are beautiful. Not everything any pony has done are all things we're proud of."

"I want to take the good with the bad."

"Please, Bright Eyes. I can't make myself lie to you if you tell me to tell you! I don't want to hurt you."

"Am I a criminal?"

"No."

"... Am I... am I a murderer?"

"NO!" He snarled at me, I gasped. "YOU ARE NOT! Any pony who ever tells you are is a bucking liar! You are not a killer! You've never been a killer! You could never be a killer!"

"...I'm connected to the disaster somehow aren't I?"

"Now you're just guessing! Don't do this to yourself, Bright!"

"It's an educated guess. You've talked about what the disaster was, and how it happened. But you've never talked about why it happened, and you've been completely vague of anything leading up to it. Sparkler and Glory have been even vaguer. There are only two reasons you'd hide it. Either you were involved or I was. And you'd never be that cowardly to hide it if it was you."

Lance was silent and lowered his head a little. "Wish I'd been more of a coward then. I swear, Bright, nothing I have told you is a lie."

I wish my memories would conveniently return right now. So I didn't have to do this. Maybe I should have kept quiet. Pretend nothing was wrong. Pretend I didn't see the pattern. But I had opened the door, and there was no way to shut it.

"Please understand, Bright," Lancer pleaded. "A lot of ponies are looking just for somepony to hate. And hate isn't like anger...it's like love. It doesn't fade, it doesn't simply burn itself out. It begets itself. It strengthens itself. It becomes a part of you. It doesn't matter to them how long it's been as long as they need to hate. With your memories gone, they think the Bright Eyes they want to hate is gone for good. That she doesn't exist anymore. That you aren't her."

He looked at my flank. Still blank. After all these years.

"If they can connect you with yourself from before the disaster, they won't just try to hurt you, but our friends, and our foals. Hatred doesn't care about whose guilty or innocent, about who's caught in the crossfire..."

"Our house wasn't that badly damaged in the explosion," I said. "I've checked around, the damage to the surrounding area just doesn't match up."

"...Ponies were desperate for someone to blame. It didn't matter if it was a bleeding unconscious mare with a family. You have to be careful with weapons, they can make a great deterrent, but if you use them recklessly, all they do is up the ante. That your cutie mark was gone, and that meant 'you' were too...was barely enough that they decided 'storming the castle' wasn't worth risking their lives over."

"You protected me while on the way to Sweetheart's farm."

"Funny thing about objects of hate. They mysteriously never have husbands, children, parents, or any of those other things that could possibly make them more people instead of things. I wasn't recognized as much. Besides, Sweetheart and her family were safe because Sweetheart is a free doctor, she's too 'valuable' to lynch."

"You fought to protect me though."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"You think I could have done anything less? For you?"

We just held each other, neither of us getting much sleep.

Remember how I said the surprises just kept coming? I hadn't been joking.

While I didn't remember many ponies, many ponies still remembered me.

What made this surprise interesting, was that nearly no one else knew her at first, but I was supposed to.

Unlike the unicorns, this mare hadn't knocked on the front door, she had walked onto the estate while I was taking in the fresh air. The mare had a deep tanned coat. She had more than her fair share of gear. Her mane and tail was a progressive set of pale blue, light magenta, yellow, and finally white like her tail had started growing different colors as it grew out. Her cutie mark was a purple flower.

She approached openly and unarmed.

"Bright Eyes...you are alive. I knew it," Her accent was from the tropics. She sounded and looked tired. She wavered on four legs. She also seemed to be very relieved.

After all this time, I still hadn't figured out a polite way to say it.

"I'm sorry, I... I can't... "

By now Lancer who was never far away was already on top of us. He gave me an escape and asked for me.

"Excuse me, who are you?"

The mare was surprised, she clearly wasn't expecting that question.

"I... I know we only met once...Lancelot?"

"Lancer."

"Oh I'm sorry Lancer, but Bright Eyes, there's no way you've forgotten me. It's me, Moki."

+++++

It took three long hours for Moki to convince us she wasn't a con trying to take advantage of my amnesia. An extra hour for Moki to get over her shock of two unicorns from Paradise Estate living with us. And another hour for Lancer to finally remember the exchange student. She even provided some letters in my hoof writing that she had sent me before the disaster.

I eagerly devoured them before my family could stop me. Any journals or personal notes I might have had were either stored on now useless computers, or had oh so mysteriously been impossible to find after the end of the world.

They were all from my teenage or collage years, but I didn't care, it was an uncensored window into myself and into my past.

It also turns out that all this time, Moki assumed the news about my memory being lost was only a factoid (that word means the opposite of what most ponies think it means by the way, thank you very much!).

Moki told me about the time I had visited her island, and when she had visited Ponyville, most of which was confirmed by my parents and Lancer.

Of course.

"Moki!"

"Night Eyes!"

"You're okay!"

"Yes, I am."

"How is Ichi and everyone?"

"My brother is... doing fine."

"I take it I gave Night Eyes a mother and daughter-only visit to Tropical Island?" I asked.

There were nods all around.

"So when are you due?" Moki asked me shifting the topic.

"A couple of weeks," I said, "But Moki... what are you doing here? Why did you come all the way here? Why now?"

"...There were...responsibilities that needed me first. I wanted to see you right after the disaster. But my...my family, needed me. And Tropical Island needed everypony."

None of us felt like prying. Except of course:

"So what kind of responsibilities? How did everyone need you?" Night Eyes had to ask. Sometimes being innocent and pure can be detrimental.

"...There was a lot of damage after the disaster. We aren't the only family on Tropical Island after all...There was a lot that needed repairing."

Sparkler then gave her a way out. "So it must have been an epic journey making it all the way across the ocean. I've heard you have sharks between here and Ponyville, it must have been quite an ordeal."

"Getting across the ocean wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Erm, the seaponies helped."

"Oh Moki!" I said, "I wish I had remembered you. Or someone had mentioned you! We've worked with them! I'm sure we could have exchanged letters if I had asked them!"

Moki was honestly surprised by this.

"I must say, in the end, it's quite impressive you came it here all by yourself. But you came well prepared," Sparkler said looking at the gear.

"Actually, only some of that I brought with me, the rest... I found."

"So you left your home just to visit Bright Eyes?" Glory asked, "That's so wonderful of you."

"My family understands. I had to see you again, Bright Eyes after everything that happened."

I didn't notice at the time how Lancer's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

Moki continued. "I would like to stay with you for the time being if you will let me."

Night Eyes spoke first as she hugged her. "Of course you can!"

Lancer and I looked at each other.

++++

And that was how, all apparently because of me, our house gained three tenants. Oh there were the former servants, now more like work-hoofs, but Glory, Sparkler, and Moki were new additions. And they had all faced the broken world, just to visit, see, and live with me for the time being.

They were all friends I had made, like with Sweetheart, but it was actually fairly overwhelming to think how these mares had made this decision apparently all based on me! This actually a bit disturbing. What didn't I remember? I was just a mare. Yet these ponies had faced much just to be with me? I was thinking in circles.

And I was very distracted very soon, I realized what was going to happen a day before when my appetite suddenly dropped to zero and parts of me began to swell.

Night Eyes had been born in a hospital, with doctors and medical equipment all nearby. Paranoid fear gripped my soul, making me wonder if this new foal would be lost to the world before they could live, because modern civilization was gone.

As my second foal began to push their way into the world, the worry wouldn't leave. Doctors save lives.

I knew I was connected to the disaster somehow. Someway. Lancer wouldn't be hiding the details so readily if I wasn't, and he hadn't denied my conclusions. If my foal died, would it be because of me? A black pit formed inside me at the thought.

I am very happy that I recovered my memory of Night Eyes' birth in full. It prepared me for this. I thought equine births were supposed to fast and simple, and the mother recovering quick and easy! Sweetheart, you'd have to rewrite the medical books for this!

Thankfully we hadn't been sitting on our haunches for eleven months. We had been preparing. But what shocked me was that Lancer wasn't here.

As soon as he saw my appetite fading, he and Glory had up and vanished with dad's fastest pegasus flier to who knows where. I was left with hazy paranoid fantasies about a love affair.

"It's wonderful to see you again Bright Eyes."

"Sweetheart," I gasped out.

Glory and Lancer laid nearby totally exhausted with Glory's horn looking much dimmer that normal, her mana spent. Both looking vey happy.

Dad couldn't stop thanking his employee for his help too.

I won't say everything magically got easier, but Sweetheart there gave me an inner strength and hope I hadn't had before. Especially now that I could remember her. I wanted to make it through this so I could talk about the old days I remembered now!

We had already discussed names depending if the foal was a colt or a filly. Keen Eyes was the name we had chosen for a colt.

You have no idea how wonderful it was to see that small colt alive and healthy. Night Eyes, of course, wanted a view too, even though Sweetheart had kept nearly everyone out of the room, Night Eyes was first in line to see the new pony in the world.

Lancer was delighted at the sight of our son. Our parents were happy to have another grandfoal. Moki was perhaps the calmest through the entire delivery.

After all the fear and worries that had eaten at me, dealing with the afterbirth was a sideshow. I couldn't care less. Get up in the morning, give birth during lunch, and go to the fields in the afternoon my flanks. After eleven months of carrying Keen Eyes within me, all I wanted to do now was rest.

+++++

"Pink Velvet, what was that noise outside?" I asked groggily, it was sunset.

"Oh!" She looked surprised I was awake. "Just some rowdy ponies I had promised to help lead to a party once before I realized those kinds of parties just weren't for me. They heard there was a big event and they really wanted to be a part of it, they brought noise makers and fireworks and jump rope. But I told them that they must have had the wrong address. That their guest of honor wasn't around. I told them she might have fled to some diamond mines up north if they wanted to continue looking for her. They didn't think a working pony like me, who's like them, could be wrong about that sort of thing so they left. Don't worry, they didn't trash anything."

"Pink Velvet, thank you."

"Well, a mother like you can't be dealing with any rowdy parties right now. And... those kinds of parties really aren't for me like I thought they were. Please just rest Bright Eyes, you're safe, I promise."

I did.

++++

I'm tired. I'm just so tired. This road, it's been so long. Doesn't it ever end? Or is there only the illusion of the horizon? It's just as they say: time marches on and it waits for no mare.

Years pass as years do. Glory and Sparkler are only now beginning to show any signs of aging, but it's still incredibly slower than any normal pony. Moki stays. It doesn't make sense but she does. It feels like she's waiting for something.

But it doesn't stop her from helping me recover my memories. No, I haven't given up on them. Even if it's with my dying breath, I'm going to face final judgment with all of my personal records.

But the memory I want and fear the most doesn't come. Am I afraid of it? Am I really terrified of the truth? The one my family won't reveal? Maybe I should leave well enough alone but...no. Sweetheart said recovering my memories was my responsibility. So that meant if I didn't do it, no one would.

I do not prescribe to the belief that if something is forgotten by all, then that event never took place. Our parents are getting on in years. Old age is catching up with them. We've also had to bring in younger workers to keep the farm and smithery running. The looks they give me are not all pleasant, though a good deal look at me with pity.

Keen Eyes grows up healthy. Night Eyes' novelty at having a little brother has worn off. Keen Eyes, he's growing up in a world were electronic and many life saving medicines are now just stories. Like the seaponies were stories to me. He's also proving to be quite the sharp shooter. Lancer is teaching both of them everything he knows about shooting and fencing.

While Keen Eyes chaffs under it much more than Night Eyes does, I am making sure no foals of mine are going to grow up to be ignorant. Keen Eyes wonders how good any of this knowledge is related to survival. I have to explain to him carefully and calmly that knowledge is part of understanding the world around you, and building up a clearer picture of things, which helps you think, which is the key to any survival.

Keen Eyes will be a product of this broken world, but he'll never be some darwinist savage if I have anything to say about it.

Pegasi couriers are getting harder to come by, and larger packs of pegasi bully the smaller ones into adopting their policies. But friendships and blood ties win out for now.

Then came the year Lancer had one heck of a birthday present for me.

Sweetheart. Melody. Clover. And Bonbon. Along with their husbands. All together. All of us together. Patch was still out there somewhere, all we know of her is the word-of-mouth tales she seems to be racking up about her. And Buddy and his son were managing the newborn town of Trottingham.

Via methods he would not divulge, Lancer had collective five us together again.

The five of us. I can't say it didn't feel wonderful. I heard Lancer making jokes with Teddy and Ace about the immature antics they had pulled off as youths, and the silent war that had existed between the three boys and the seven girls, with Lancer often siding with us girls. Amazing how many things seem so tiny and petty once you get enough years between them.

The five us reminisced about old times, the major problems being was that there had been seven of us. And that I didn't have a clue about most of what we talked about. Including Clover, who I ultimately knew the least about now.

I knew these mares. They were still my friends. Yet I knew so little. Lancer broke off from the stallions more than once to comfort me and to chase away the shadows.

The worst part? I could barely remember what Melody's voice sounded like. Sweet Music, however, had a more beautiful voice than I ever thought possible for a pony.

I wonder where Patch is right now, and how she could be missing all this. And I wonder what Starlight would say if she was here right now.

Starlight, I wish I could remember you more right now. Because I know, with friends like these, and how they speak of you, that you're the kind of mare I'd have loved to know, and I'm sure I loved knowing.

"Bright Eyes, thank for helping out when Ms Hackney left me in charge today. And double thank you for keeping the...field trip to Pinto Cave under wraps."

"Starlight, it's no trouble. We all make mistakes. Even you."

"And you?"

"Oh. Heh. Yes I guess I do too. I was wrong about Teddy being the thief of Melody's cassette player. But Starlight, I know you're going to make a great teacher someday."

"Thanks, Bright Eyes." We hugged.

I gasped at the memory returning.

I told Lancer that it was a wonderful birthday present.

All shared hugs and kisses before we left Melody's house where the party was held, it was time to go home.

It built up slowly, like small doses of poison. Tiny drops spaced far apart. But I noticed Moki slowly growing more uncomfortable. I honestly wondered how her family was doing and how she could stand to be away from them for so long.

"Bright Eyes, do you still want your memories back?" she asked.

"Yes," I said without hesitation.

"You know they won't all be good ones."

"I know that already."

"And there's a chance that no matter what, you won't be getting them back. Maybe you should just enjoy the memories you've made."

"My family has been doing it's hardest to fight against the tide of trying to hold onto something of the world. I want to remember what we've been fighting for. I can't teach my children a legacy if I can't remember what it's a legacy of."

"So if there's something that can get your memories back. Even if it's just a shot in the dark. You'd take it?"

"Yes."

"I"m not joking when I say not all your memories will be ones you're proud of."

"I think I've figured out some of the pieces already. But I want to see those memories for myself. Lancer can't stop himself from being my shield. My parents won't talk about it. And Night Eyes was too young to fully grasp what my part was. I'm sick and tired of being protected from myself. I want the truth."

"...I see....Alright. I've been reading. I can think of one place that might trigger everything. And... and if it doesn't work, I promise I'll tell you everything that's been kept from you anyway."

"Let's go."

"Right now?"

"Yes right now. I've waited years, decades, I'm sick of waiting. Show me."

"Alright. But please, let me grab some things and get myself ready first. I've... I've been waiting a long time to do this and... and it feels... a bit overwhelming for... for it to be here."

"Alright, Moki."

I left a letter with Lancer, and to my parents and to my children. I had this weird sense of resignation writing it. Like I wouldn't be coming back? Must be all the memories I'll have to face.

Maybe I was sick of how I couldn't trust anyone outside the estate. Maybe I was sick of not knowing. Maybe I was sick of the holes in my head. Maybe I was sick of trying to teach my children about things I couldn't remember but should. Maybe even if it was just a ghost of a chance that could end it all, I wanted to try. Even if I had to face what I had done, at least I wouldn't have the shadow of what I might have done.

Ponyville. Of all place. Ponyville proper. It had changed so much. Power lines, cars, cellphones, all gone. Houses in disrepair. If they could keep out the cold in the winter and the heat in the summer then that was enough. And don't get me started on the smell.

We both wore hooded-cloaks. It was one of Lancer's rules whenever I went far from the mansion. Sparker and Glory had been forced to adopt this policy as well. That was one of the clues that I was connected to the disaster. I was pretty sure I knew why they had to, and I had little reason to assume it wasn't the same for me.

We didn't go to where I figured my old house would be. Nor did we go to the school that wasn't seeing as much use as it should have been.

Moki didn't hesitate to tell me where we were going when I scrapped together the brains to ask.

"Old Woods."

Old Woods.

The name rang in my mind like a bell. It was important.

Moki always took point, I was watching her back. She trusted me.

She was holding a small notebook, she explained they were directions she had copied down during one of her visits into Ponyville. She said they had been a gift from Bonbon.

But when we came to a large patch of thistles, I went off in the opposite direction Moki was going.

"Bright Eyes! But it's this way!"

"And my feelings tell me that there's something this way."

"... Alright, Bright Eyes." Moki began marking the trail behind us so we could find our way back.

I keep going where my instincts told me. Maybe this was all my imagination. Maybe this was just a fantasy. Maybe this was my mind trying to create something out of nothing! But I'd take that gamble!

"Bright Eyes, maybe this was wrong for me to do. Maybe we should just..."

"NO!" I snapped at her, and I kept point.

Finally we ended up at the edge of Old Woods, okay, not really the edge. But it was somewhere close-by, closer to what ponies knew and recognized.

What I finally found, was what had to be the most generic and un-extraordinary forest clearing in the history of forest clearing. I had seen one with more distinguishing features on a five year old's crayon drawing with stick-ponies.

There was even a generic cliff that surrounded it on three sides. Trivial for an adult mare.

But

But for a small filly. Who spent almost no time outside to begin with. Who hadn't learned how dangerous the world was yet...

"Bright Eyes?" I heard Moki intrude. "Are you-"

"Shush," I said curtly.

I trotted into the center.

"When have we met before?" I asked it. "With so many other memories gone. So many buried on top. Are you at the surface now? But memories don't work that way. Do they? Are you just my imagination trying to fill in the gap? What are you calling me here?"

I trot over the cliff, I strangely feel like a giant towering over a castle wall somehow. The rocks that make it up look like a mess of lego blocks, breaking off at right angles whenever erosion took a prize, grass crowning it with top soil.

I touched the stones. I pulled my hoof back like they were white hot. Fear. Confusion. Unsure. Apprehension. Maze. Pain. Disorientation. My mind associated it with all those things.

I took several trots back. There was something at the very edge of myself. I could almost feel it. I could almost touch. Just a bit more. Just a bit more!

A bird's song. Huh? I've heard it before. I know I have. I turn towards nature's music. It has green wings.

Stupid trees.

Why did we have to come out here again?

It's nothing but bugs that crawl on you. Misquotes that bite you. Sun that burns you. Pollen that makes you sneeze. Noisy birds that won't shut up.

How am I supposed to read in a place like this?! Trees makes you think they can provide shade, but it's only so the worms and the spider can crawl on you when you're not looking!

The only good tree is one turned one into books. The only reason there should be more trees around is so they don't run out of trees to make into books.

How can daddy not know this? He runs the newspaper after all, paper, from trees. I read about that. Books are great. They don't tease you. They always tell you interesting things about some foals. I bet trees are happy to be made into books where they're doing some good.

Mommy says this is so I can learn to be a little bit more active. What's the point of that? Brains beat brawn. That's what all my books say. Why should I care about being more active?

A lot of the teachers are really impressed how I can read already and so well. While the other foals are reading 'I see foal run.' That filly with the patch cutie mark was the worst, she actually turned in a drawing when asked to write something (I think it was her name), how could fillies that stupid even exist? How did she even have the brains to put one hoof in front of the other?

Why did daddy have to bring that radio? I can't read with that music. Can't he turn it off? I have to learn to appreciate music? Music is a part of every pony's heart? You can't read hearts. And the heart is pump, the beat it makes wasn't composed by anypony. That's a silly and stupid comparison!

I wanna go home. The grass is scratchy, the bugs are biting and it's so noisy even without the music! I get to get out of here. Just until it's time to finally go home!

At least I can use the trees to hide from my parents until it's time to go home. As long as I have my books with me, I'm fine.

+++++

"Princess, I mean, Luna, are you ssuuuuuure Minty wasn't Bright Eyes instead?"

"I must confess,
that would be my guess."

"I was never that bad!...Was I?"

"From what I've heard of your friends this chat,
I do not think you want the answer to that."

"Maybe her being Zipzee was a typo?"

"Typo? It's hoof-written!"

"Calm thyselves my little ponies, and zebra. All ponies alive are works in progress."

+++++

Well finished that book. It was great. Oh, I need to go back to the car for another one... Uh. Which way is the car? I know it was... this way. It had to be this way.

...

Or maybe that way?

There was a trail right? There's always a trail.

I don't like. I really want to go home now mommy. Mommy where are you?

What was that sound? Was it a cougar? Do cougars eat ponies? No no no. Cougars are mountain lions, this isn't a mountain. There aren't any wolves around here. Mommy and daddy wouldn't take me where there are any bears.

BEES! I'm not after your honey. I'm not after your honey. See? I'm going away!

...Are there coyotes in the forest? ...

Oh ...

... right.

Coyotes are everywhere.

PLEASE DON'T EAT ME!

I run, I skip, I jump, I climb. I hear them. They're after me! They wanna eat me! HELP! HELP! HELP ME!

Do you hear me, little pony?

I heard a lady's voice.

"Help me!"

Why should I help a filly who brought this on herself? Her voice wasn't mean, but reminded me of the dog catcher's somehow.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll never say mean things to trees again I promise!"

You think that is what this all about? Trees do not care what you think of them and keep their opinions to themselves. My coyotes' cubs are hungry. You are meat. Nothing else to it.

"P-p-please, I don't want to die."

It is not my fault when a young wanders too far from the protection of its parent, when it doesn't know how to protect itself, and becomes food for the young of other creatures.

The lady's voice sang. I kept running.

First you'll see them, then you don't.
Then you'll hear them, now you won't.

I looked around I couldn't see where the coyote where, I couldn't hear them, did I get away?

It's the key of survival in a deadly world.

I felt dog breath on my neck, I scream and dove for cover.

Now you feel them, now you can't.

I look up and just see some branches and logs that kinda look like a coyote.

Were they real? Perhaps they aren't?

It's their key of survival in a deadly world.

"It's...it isn't that mean." I whimpered out, I was crying so much.

Oh you are so wrong.

From up above, WHEN DID THEY GET THERE?! and from beneath. GO AWAY!!!!

Evolve eyes and jaws, nails and fangs. Where did they all come from!? Stop looking at me! Get away.

Even the most stupid of prey should know when to run! I tried to! But...every way I looked.

Ponies have no business in the wilds if they have no gun!

I screamed so loud my throat hurt and I ran blindly holding my book out in front of me. I felt claws in my back. Ithurtsithurtsithurts!

All creatures have to look out only for themselves.

Here there are no police, doctors or magic elves!

I tripped and fall, down, down, down, I cut myself, and skid my knee...I see them. I can't run. I'm...I'm...Mommy, daddy. Please. Save me.

And a secret you've learned all too late!

The coyote leapt at me jaws and fangs ready.

"STOP AT ONCE!"

The coyote all stopped, like someone had hit pause on a VCR, one was even stretched out in the middle of his leap.

You. How dare you interfere with nature's fury?

"These woods are mine. This forest is mine. What I say is. And I say that this filly lives this day."

I try to see who is speaking. I don't see her anywhere. The new voice, sounds like it has...more...heart?

The children of Havoc never forget a slight, Place Holder Goddess. You have violated my domain. You shall cry for this one day, Acting Concept. Life is strife. This act of compassion has no place in nature, Temporary One. Remember this day, and ask yourself again if one piece of flesh denied my coyote's cubs was truly worth it.

The coyotes scattered aimless, like they couldn't even see me anymore.

"I am very sorry for that, little pony."

Where did she come from? She was a deer. A doe. A very big doe. She was the one talking? Deers don't talk. Do they?

Why did grass and flowers grow wherever she stepped? That didn't make sense.

"It's okay little pony, no one is going to hurt you now," she said nuzzling me.

The deer's head rose up. She smiled. Deer don't smile! But this deer was smiling.

The tiny stubs on her head glowed pretty colors. Why am I lifting off the ground? I quickly grab my book. I float over until I'm on the doe's back.

"Who... are you?"

"I am a caretaker, a steward, a mother to many. But most importantly, I'm a friend."

"But... you've just, we've-"

She began walking with me on her back.

"Foals shouldn't think about such things yet. Haven't you ever heard these words little filly? A friend in need, is a friend indeed. You are in need, and indeed, I'll be your friend."

"You chased away the mean coyotes? Who was... that other lady?"

"She was...making sure every animal does its best. She was making sure the coyotes do their best."

"She's mean."

"Maybe she is. But she isn't what's important. What's important is that your parents must be very worried about you aren't they?"

"I... I guess."

"Why did you wander off?"

"I just, I just wanted to be alone to read."

"So far away from your parents?"

"...I didn't like coming here. Everything was so distracting. I can't read."

"Reading is very, very, very important little pony. And it's very impressive that you can read so well, but are so small."

"I'm not a baby."

"I didn't say you were. But...you can read books...but you can read the forest too."

"Forests don't have words. You can't read them."

She gave a smile that reminded me of mom when she had something to teach me. "Sheet music doesn't have words, but musicians read them don't they?"

"...I guess. But those have symbols and meaning."

"The forest has symbols and meanings too little pony, if you know where to look."

A butterfly landed on the doe's back. I knew from books that its face was so ugly. But...it's wings... they were kinda pretty.

"There you see? Life isn't so bad. What the lady said was only half the story. There's more to the world than just that. And you know not to judge a story until you've read all of it, right, dear?"

"Yes."

"That's a good filly." We trotted through a field of flowers...they smelled nice, and they didn't make me sneeze. "This is what happens when you stop and look and listen instead of trying to ignore it all and shut it out. There is more to read in this world than books, as wonderful as they are.

Just look around you. The lady's coyotes are part of nature, but so is that,"

She pointed one of her hooves to a bird in a tree sitting on it egg, checking on it to make sure its ok.

"Nature has a caring side as well. Here's a good example."

I followed her hoof. I covered my nose quick when I saw what it was!

She giggled. "It's ok, she doesn't even see you."

I blink and look closer. It's a momma skunk leading her babies around. They're cute. She stops and looks around, making sure they don't wonder off.

"You can uncover your nose, little pony, they don't stink unless they're in danger, or their babies are."

I do and she's right, they don't smell at all.

"Most ponies don't think about it, but skunks are actually very excellent mothers. That awful smell they're known for is just how they protect themselves and their kits." She smiles to me. "And look, here's another good mother."

I look again. Another doe is laying in the grass, her baby curled up beside her. Its so cute with its spots! They're so beautiful.

The big deer gives a smile. "See, there's a caring side to nature too."

I nod and smile at the deer. "Yeah...there is."

I listen...the birds are singing. I here a river roaring sweetly. The wind blowing through the trees. So many sounds...but they all come together. They're all so beautiful....It's like listening to a song, just like she said!

The doe's stubs are glowing pretty colors again, and so am I. She lifts me off my back. My book. She lowers me into a pool. I'm suddenly not hurting anymore. My cuts and scratches are all gone. I feel happy. I feel alive. The river feeds the trees. The tree the birds nest in. The birds who spread the seeds. The seeds that bloom the flowers. The flowers the insects pollinate. The insects that frogs eat. Everything. Everything is connected. Like words in a story. I feel sleepy.

"BRIGHT EYES!" Daddy!

"BRIGHT EYES!" Mommy!

I'm glowing again and I'm lifted out of the spring.

"Your parents are looking for you, you best go back to them."

"My parents are looking for me, I best go back to them."

She places me on her back again.

"They both love you very very much searching the woods by themselves."

"They both love me very very much searching the woods by themselves."

"You're safe with them."

"I'm safe with them."

"You don't need to be afraid with them."

"I don't need to be afraid with them."

"Just rest for now."

"Just rest for now."

I need a little nap.

I woke up with claw scratches on me that weren't really that deep or hurt that badly, they didn't scar. And I woke up with mommy and daddy close by.

Mommy and daddy weren't happy I had gone off. But they had heard the coyotes. They heard me screaming for help. They hadn't stopped looking once. They didn't care if they had a gun or not. They cared about me.

They really more happy that I was okay than unhappy I had wandered off. And I really happy they found me. They thought it was a really good idea if I saw a doctor to make sure the coyote who bit me didn't have rabies, I don't know what a river would be doing inside coyotes though.

The Old Woods. They were scary. But they were also very pretty. I wondered when we could visit again.

Author's Note:

Fanart by Lord Evell http://lord-evell.deviantart.com/art/More-ponies-292630310

Comments

[Paleb05]

So Far...

Bright Eyes: 6th Pony entry
Dream/Lost Age: Zipzee: Merged with Posey to become Fluttershy.
Nightmare: Suffered amnesia when the spell failed, slowly regaining memories from before
To Be Continued.

[Alex Warlorn]

2712966

Epic music choices!

Though the Nightmare World isn't THAT depressing for Cronos since they can still grow food and aren't being hunted by killer robots.

[the61scissors]

So did a future Fluttershy do the time warp like Rancor did earlier?

[Lakeguy]

The part with the Old Woods at the end was so beautiful! They mentioned keeping their faith when they were celebrating Christmas, so what sort of religion would ponies have had at that point? Also, how does factoid mean the opposite of what most people think it means?

[Alex Warlorn]

8742323

Factoid:
"an assumption or speculation that is reported and repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact."

They mentioned keeping their faith when they were celebrating Christmas, so what sort of religion would ponies have had at that point?

They likely adopted what they learned from Megan and her siblings.

The part with the Old Woods at the end was so beautiful!

What part? The contrast between Strife and Princess Gaia's predecessor? Or how Bright Eyes became a born again green pony at such a long age after her encounter with the two goddesses?

[Alex Warlorn]

2728146
Concepts aren't bound by the river of time like mortal creatures, what is past or future to them?

[Alex Warlorn]

2712851
No. Princess Gaia hadn't ascended yet. So she hadn't retroactively become the concept of nature.

[Alex Warlorn]

2711771
I never wanted to write Bright Eyes' saga, but at least it worked out I hope.

[Misty Spell]

I dreamed I was a purple Earth Pony with wisdom unmeasured,
and for that knowledge I was quite treasured.

Until Spike came along anyway, then you were obsolete.

"Zecora, are you sure? This...isn't the easiest thing to read."

Not because it's particularly mind blowing, to be fair, just a bit of a slog.

What kind of pony was I, if I could forget my own foal?

A pony with amnesia?

But he also swore to St. Megan and Pony Heaven that I wasnota criminal.

Of all the beings to canonize as a saint. Don't get me wrong, she was a good kid, but hardly a being worth any kind of religious devotion.

She had actually converted to my faith on the spot and begun praying for pony civilization to survive this horror, more so than her own survival.

No atheists in foxholes eh?

Might explain the mental image of him in white barding fighting a skeletal pegasus to the death over my soul.

If he actually fenced Mortis for her soul that'd actually be pretty interesting.

Hearing Night Eyes say it was mean to let other ponies starve was crushing.

And absolutely immediately we get the response to Twilights dilemma? That's just clunky.

And it gave all of us the strength to move forward. And believe in a tomorrow.

Eh, whatever keeps you going I guess. Not sure who you're praying to though. Human god, Father-of-Alicorns, Mother Earth. We had mention of a bible but I have my doubts that that's it. Dude's not too keen on sharing the spotlight with other gods, which kind of puts the whole pantheon thing at odds with it.

Yeah, I said that I'd give the religion thing some slack as long as it didn't come up too much, but if you keep throwing your favorite things into a live firing range then don't get upset when they get riddled with bullet holes.

"These animals are here because they're ENDANGERED stupid! Oh sure! It's SUPER CRUEL how they have access to vets, daily food, and protection from hunters and predators! It's totally heartless! Doctors making sure their entire litters survive instead of half dying. How can ponies be so unfeeling towards animals? Did your parents drop you on your head when you were a baby? A lot? How can you think these things and have the brain power to write down words?! A brat as retarded as you belongs in a special ed class!"

Wow, kid, way to put the jerk back into jerkass has a point.

But at the moment that night where flowers bloomed, and lightning pierced the heavens, so much came to me.

So she just needed a good rutting the whole time? Wow...

"After all, if the Ice Orcs and the Lava Demons who freeze or melt if they try and shake hands, can still be friends, then it should be easy-peasy for different ponies."

Depends on the authors values really. This isn't the heart verse after all.

Why should I help a filly who brought this on herself?

Hi, Strife. How's Mortis doing? Bucker owes me twenty bits.

First you'll see them, then you don't.
Then you'll hear them, now you won't.

[Alex Warlorn]

8976303

Yeah, I said that I'd give the religion thing some slack as long as it didn't come up too much, but if you keep throwing your favorite things into a live firing range then don't get upset when they get riddled with bullet holes.

Not really, you keep turning around and shooting that straw dummy you brought with you instead.

And I was upset with how much I had to quantify Discord and Celestia's extended family enough as it is. So I had no desire to go into their various alias' and how those alias' were worshipped. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!

And Megan has become larger than life over the centuries since ponies last saw her.

And my best friend LOVES that song!

And this was supposed to be a beautiful moment for Bright Eyes. Where we see where she got her love of nature from. Where she saw the ugly side, and the beautiful side of the natural world in the same day. The moment that made her who she is. In other words, Fluttershy's love of the natural world is a constant through all her incarnations.

As I said, I was trying to make her flawed, I wasn't trying to make her an asshole.

A pony with amnesia?

EMOTIONAL DISTRAUGHT IS NOT MEANT TO BE RATIONAL!

Until Spike came along anyway, then you were obsolete.

I never said G3 wasn't an utter continuity mess.