CHAPTER FIFTY - A FAMILIAR FACE
"Is the deer crossing the road, or is the road crossing the forest?" - Freequill

The Pinkbeard series is weird when you think about it. Almost every other book in the history of equine literature has forgiveness in it. Lots and lots of forgiveness. You know, Pony #1 gets selfish. Promises to help Pony #2, but slacks off cause they're tired or whatever, and ends up fucking everything up by mistake. They say they're sorry. Make up for it somehow, and everything gets all forgiveitty. The end.

Pirates aren't like that. They don't do forgiveness. Because they don't fuck up like that in the first place. When you're on the run from the East Equestria Trading Company; when you're swapping canon balls with a ship that's literally made out of ghosts; when you piss off a talking volcano by stealing its magical spoon made out of rubies and it starts spitting fireballs at you as you try to row away - there's no room for betrayal. There's no room for cowardice.

Maybe that's what drew me to those kinds of stories in the first place. The dependability. The fact that pirates may lie and cheat and curse and steal and kill. But they can count on one another.

Maybe changelings are the same way. Protect the hive or die trying.

"There is an art to lying." Foster said. "You need to put a little bit of Truth into it or nopony's going to believe you." She leaned in close. Closer than close.

The nearest grownups may have been a hundred feet away - lab coat ponies processing our test results. Fiddling with scientifical gadgets and doo-dads and thingamajigs. But we still couldn't risk being overheard.

So the three of us huddled in that makeshift outdoor waiting room they'd constructed for us. Our heads lay halfway down on the table.

"But what does that mean for us?" Cliff replied. "You know, right now."

"Yeah," I added. "What exactly are we supposed to tell them?"

"Exactly what they expect to hear. Give them a sob story - a real one." Foster held up a hoof. "Just leave out all the details. We have no idea what their culture is like. Their history. Their experiences. Why there aren't any of you horsebirds around."

"Horsebird?" Cliff sat up, folded his forehooves disdainful-like, and gave Foster the evil eye.

"Trottica explains me," I said. "The reason I don't know Wasteland culture is 'cause I've been locked awa--;"

"No," Foster said. "Don't get cute with it. You don't act like a kid who's spent an entire lifetime in a mine. You were messed up by a single messed up experience. That's not the same."

"Okay."

"And more importantly, nothing 'explains you'. If you think like that, you're missing the point. You shouldn't be looking to explain yourself at all. Keep quiet. Listen more than you talk. Make them work to get you to open up about yourself. That way, they feel like they made progress when you do tell them something, and they won't press you too hard after that...hopefully."

"Hopefully?"

"I don't trust these ponies," Foster said. "Do you?"

Cliff and I shifted in our seats. "They do seem...nice," Cliff begrudgingly admitted.

"But they're already skeptical," I whispered to Cliff. Then turned to Foster to ask the big question. "What do you reckon they'll do to us?"

"Well, the good news is, they appear to sincerely believe in what they're doing here," Foster replied. "So maybe they won't do anything to us at all." Foster clopped her forehooves together, all fidgety-like. Unwilling to say out loud what she thought the alternative to that maybe might be.

"Okay, so what do we tell them about the wall?" Cliff asked. "How we got over it. How we ended up in the middle of nowhere? That's what the Safety ponies really wanna know anyhow."

Foster rubbed her temples. The way an old mare might. "I'm not sure," she sighed. "We don't have the lay of the land. They're going to send a whole herd of ponies out there to check out our story - look for breaches in the wall. They're going to get in Rock Breaker's business."

"Is he gonna get in trouble 'cause of us?!" Cliff squeaked.

"No," I answered before Foster could. "Miss Honey reeeeally believed way down deep in her heart that Rock Breaker was an idiot."

"Yeah," Cliff replied, scratching his chin. "She wouldn't have sent that-orange-teacher-she-was-mad-at to take his statement if she thought he was some kind of master mind."

"Miss Mango," Foster said grimly. "Her name was Miss Mango. You've got to get in the habit of memorizing names. Keep meticulous track of what ponies tell you about themselves. When you remember little details, they feel listened to, and that's when they start to trust you."

"That's great," I snapped. "So. How. Did. We. Get. Here? What. Are. We. Supposed. To. Tell. Them?"

"Nothing," Foster replied.

"Excuse me?" I blink-bloinked my blinkitty eyelids.

"That's the part they're gonna ask about the most," Cliff stated the obvious fucking thing that needed stating.

"Yeah," Foster replied. "And if we did somehow manage to come up with a believable story - which we can't - they'd wanna know every detail. If one of us slipped up, even a little, they'd notice."

"So what are we supposed to say?" Cliff scoffed. "'We'll never tell you. Neener neener neener'?"

Foster sighed in defeat. "We'll just have to say that we forgot."

"We forgot?!" A squeak poked through Cliff's whispering throat apple.

"You woke up in that ditch," Foster answered. "Which, by the way, you can describe in detail - and...we, um...don't remember anything before that."

"That’s it?!" I said.

"That's it," Foster said. "It's the only story either of you can tell convincingly."

"...But they're gonna wonder who sent us." Cliff said. "And what we're here to do."

"We don't even know what we're here to do," I added.

"Exactly!" Foster said, eyes sparkling with hope and wonder.

...Then Cliff and I just sorta...looked at one another, his eyeballs screaming at my eyeballs, 'Does Foster know how crazy she is?!’ My eyeballs screamed the same thing in return. Back and forth the ocular conversation went. ‘Til Cliff turned to Foster, and spoke up for real. "Um...But that just makes us suspicious."

"They're going to suspect us no matter what," Foster retorted.

A somber silence fell over the table. One-by-one, all of our sights drifted toward the grownups at the faraway medical table.

It was eerie. 'Cause they were thinking about us too.

Do you know that feeling you get when you grip a magnet in your teeth? And then, you, like, get close to some other magnet, and it starts pulling on you, and you feel...like...this tug? Even though there's nothing to see? That's what the Safety grownups were like. Their brains kept making magnet talk. About us. And I felt the pull of it. We all did.

"Okay," I begrudgingly admitted. "We are suspicious. And not knowing who sent us, why, or even how probably is the only way to go."

"Yeah," said Cliff. "But what happened, like, right before we woke up in the ditch? What's the last thing we supposedly remember?"

The question was a burning one. Just hearing it spoken aloud, even I got suspicious of us too.

Foster didn't have a smart reply either. Instead, Cliff's words simply hung in the air like fog.

"Yeah," I said. "Let's figure this out. What do we say?" I turned to Bananas Foster, again, hoping for a plan, but she was way too busy staring off into space. Like one of those potato soldiers huddling in the trenches of No Mare's Land. "Foster?"

"What? Huh?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," she answered in that impossible-to-mistake tone that folks use whenever they're anything but alright.

"Are you sure?"

She swallowed hard. Turned her eyeballs toward the dreary Wasteland sky. "It's just…Well...Do you remember when we first got here, there was this...Y'know, before we landed in that broken old playground. There was a, well…a...sorta..." Foster stopped. Nervously scraped her hooves against the dusty concrete below the table. 'Til suddenly...

"Hey there!" A grownup voice called out to us.

"Ahh!" I ahhed ahh-ishly.

Two nurses, who had apparently been approaching us, stopped. Careful-like. "Not trying to sneak up on you," said a yellow unicorn in a lab coat. He reared back - threw his forehooves up in a we mean no harm gesture.

"Yeah," said the pistachio green nurse from before. "We don't want to intrude. Or overhear. That's not how we do things around here."

"Oooookay," I said, somewhat alarmed by their overabundance of caution.

With great care, the two finally approached. "We're here to give you some news," the yellow one announced. "Your tests are all done."

"And you passed your screening," added Pistachio Green. "You don't have any contagious diseases."

Cliff and I sighed in relief.

"But you are missing antibodies to a lot of fairly common ones around here. Bad Land Fever. Rad Flu. Zebra Pox--"

"Zebra Pox too?" The yellow one's horn flickered like a magic candle as some kinda clipboard levitated in front of her face, with green-glowing glass instead of pages. "They were vaccinating for that one back in the war."

"Yeah," answered Pistachio Green.

"Even the Stable Kids got antibodies for that." The yellow unicorn scrunched her nose like an accordion as she squinted at the magic clipboard. "Where'd you three say you were from again?"

"I don't remember," Cliff and I said same-exact-time-ishly. Like a pair of clockwork toys. Wound simultaneously. Starting off on the same hoof, then stumbling around knocking into each other shortly thereafter.

"Um, uh…"

"Like, er….you know…"

We babbled foolishly. 'Til, we both just sorta stopped. Outta nowhere. Like the crack of a whip, Cliff and I both turned to Bananas Foster. In hopes that she could help fib our way out of this.

But Foster was as dumbstruck as we were.

"Gee uh...Sorry," said the yellow nurse. "It's none of my business."

"Aaaanyways…" Pistachio Green continued as though nothing had happened. "You're all remarkably clear of diseases and parasites." She craned her neck downward to be at eye level with me. "So you pose no danger to the other kids…"

"...But they pose a danger to us," said Cliff.

"Essentially," Pistachio answered.

"Are we really that unusual?" Foster regained her composure. "Are we, like...weirdos or something?" Her voice cracked upwards with dread. Or at least the semblance of dread.

"No, no, no," the yellow unicorn babbled.

"Are we really the first kids to come along without these antibodies...or whatever you call 'em?" Foster said. "How long has it been since another kid joined Safety?"

"A week, maybe two," Pistachio answered. "We get a lot these days."

"What diseases were they immune to?"

"Sorry, Bananas. That's private," Pistachio Green shook her head. "May I call you Bananas, by the way?"

Foster nodded. "Of course."

"So what do we do now?" I said. "If we go into the compound, or whatever, there might be, like, horrible diseases?"

"Don't worry," Yellow unicorn said. "We've got you covered."

The solution? Boring medical stuff. Lots and lots of boring medical stuff. Serums. Ointments. Potions. Gemstones. Syringes. I'm not going to bore you with details, O Book of Magical Things That's Happened to Me. But I am gonna say this: the whole procedure had me worried. Every prick of a needle - every swig of a vial - filled me with terror that Foster was gonna burst into hives, or start shooting blood out of her eyeballs, or just plain explode into a billion pieces when her immune system realized what was happening.

Yeah, sure, she didn't need to be in a bubble anymore to breathe the air. But that was way different than putting stuff straight into your fucking blood.

I shot her glance after glance after glance. But every time, she held a hoof up. Or shook her head. Calm as the Monks of Monk Mountain, who sit and do nothing but hum all day long, and vow eternal silence, (unless of course, Pinkbeard and her crew happen to swing by, and need a place to hide.)

For reasons I still can't explain, Foster knew she was going to be alright. And to her credit, she totally was fine throughout all of it.

I guess it's like Princess Luna said. If you bust your knee traveling the Duckyverse, its gonna bleed all over your bed. If you die in your dream travels, you're gonna stay dead. But your dream body's always something different from your "real" one. You can't journey to Sandwichia, World of Sentient Sandwiches, without becoming one yourself. And Screw Loose got to be a giant dog whenever she Wanderer'd into my head.

So all of Foster's frailties were left behind - tied to her body-prison, stuck in that lonely bubble way up there in the Waking World. It made me wonder. If that small kindness of the Duckyverse made itself manifest here - in the Wasteland of all places - were the Powers that Be really as cruel as I had imagined? What if--;

"ROSE!!!"

"Huh? What?"

Cliff and Foster stood over me. Tapping their forehooves. Nopony else was around. No grownups at least. The medical stuff was all packed up. The tables, folded down. Except, of course, the one where I sat, daydreaming.

There were three strange kids standing patiently to the side. Smiling. Waiting for us.

"It's time for orientation," said Foster. "Come on. Pay attention."

Those last words cut deep. Pay attention. And she was right to slice at me with them. I couldn't afford to let my guard down.

I rose to my hooves, trotted on over to our 'tour guides.' A lanky boy in his teens, cursed with a white hide that exaggerated every pimple and blemish on his face. He sported a pink winter jacket and a custom prosthetic foreleg not entirely unlike the ones I'd occasionally seen back home. "Hi!" He said. "I'm Iris."

Next to him was a filly about my size. Piebald splotches of brown and white made up her coat. Like milk finding its way through coffee. Except not quite so smooth 'cause of the scars zig-zagging all the fuck over her. Like...every inch of her body except her Pip Buck. "Howdy," she exclaimed. "They call me Lucky."

Standing right in front of them both was a little blue filly, younger than any of us. She held her head up like one of those oddly regal librarians who look all dignified and aloof as they scribble in their ledger, but light up like a firework when you give them the chance to help you learn. "And I'm Elderberry Sunset," she said, despite being way too young to have anything to do with elder-berries or sunset.

"We're here to show you to your new home," Iris' voice cracked as he spoke.

"No grownups?" I said, scanning the empty courtyard.

"No grownups." Iris answered with pride.

They led us across the big empty square. Onto a totally normal city street. Just like before, all of the buildings looked like great care had gone into their reconstruction. But up close, it was evident that a lot of the bricks weren't perfect matches. The colorful paints did a damn good job of hiding the improvised masonry. (Unlike in Grownuptown where everything looked barely functional.)

Once we'd gawked a bit at the pastel-colored buildings that encircled us, and at the meticulously paved ground beneath our hooves - not at all like the jagged cornflakes of the city ruins, or the lumpy oatmeal streets just outside of Safety - our tour guides spoke up again.

"Okay. I know what you're thinking," said Lucky as our actual 'orientation' seemed finally ready to begin. "Who the hell are these strange ponies, and how come none of them have hit me yet?"

Cliff's eyes flew open so quickly it made a bloink sound.

But Lucky raised a reassuring hoof. "I swear to you, I thought the same thing my first day. First week. My first month even. And that's totally okay!"

"We've all been through it," Iris added. "And nopony expects anything of you here. Sure, there's like, classes, and clubs, and sports, and stuff - and we've even got this totally cool festival coming up - but you don't have to do any of it right away. This place is, like..." Iris paused to look up to the sky as though the word he yearned to remember might be written across the dreary clouds.

"Oasis," Elderberry croaked out an answer.

"Yeah," Iris literally leapt with enthusiasm. "That's it. Oasis. A refuge for children everywhere. Dedicated to the preservation and restoration of innocence..."

"...Because innocence is sacred," I said, all suspicious-like.

"Yeah," said Elderberry dryly. "It is."

The other two nodded quietly in approval. If Lucky had had a hat, she woulda taken it off and held it to her heart. The silence that they kept to honor the word "innocence" hung in the air just a little bit too long. Cliff looked to me and shrugged in confusion as we waited. Foster, on the other hoof, kept a totally straight face.

"Hold on," Elderberry said to Iris. "What you said isn't entirely true."

"Whattaya mean?" He crooked his neck downward to look her in the eye.

"You said they don't have to do any activities right away." Elderberry shuffled her hooves to avoid a crack in the pavement as though it had cooties. "But that's not so."

"Emotional education," Lucky chimed in.

"Oh, right!" Iris smacked his own head. "Yeah, tomorrow you all gotta get emotional education."

"What's that?" Foster asked, before Cliff or I could open our mouths and give away our suspicion.

"Nothing to be afraid of," Lucky answered. "It's a beautiful process, actually."

"But what is it?"

"Emotional Education is like a class," Elderberry answered in that dronish voice of hers. "It's where we learn how to be happy. That's all. Once you accept Safety - once you grow to embrace all that we hope to accomplish here - only happiness can follow."

"Okay," Cliff replied. "But...why wouldn't we be on board with what goes on around here?"

"Exactly!" Lucky chuckled, extending her Pip Buck hoof for a bump.

But Cliff didn't reciprocate. He just sorta stared Lucky down freaked-out-ishly. So Foster thought quick. Launched her hoof out instead. Clop!

"There's skee ball too!" Elderberry interjected, obviously changing the subject, but still genuine in her passion for the game.

"Yeah, we got an amazing rec center." Iris said. "I don't think we'll get a chance to show it to you today, but trust me, you're gonna love it."

"It's got everything." Lucky added.

"But we should show them the cafeteria." Elderberry pointed her nose at a purple building across the street.

"Yeah!" Lucky pointed a scarred hoof at us new kids. "You've eaten, right? Tell me you've eaten. And don't be shy if you're still hungry."

"I'm stuffed, actually," Foster lied.

"Me too," said Cliff, actually telling the truth (if all that porridge I'd watched him guzzle was anything to go by).

"I'm okay," I answered, eager to get to our quarters, steal a moment in private with my friends, and figure out our next move. "Thank you."

"C'mere!" Lucky said. "Have a look!" She trotted gleefully toward a row of ground-level windows in the purple building. Beckoned us over with a waving hoof.

The inside of the cafeteria was what you might expect. Long metal tables. Bench style. Rows of kids aggressively shoveling bushel-sized loads of food into their mouths. The light of all the unicorns' hovering forks sparkled like Hearth's Warming tree lights. While all the earth ponies feverishly plunged food into their mouths like those weird construction site thingies made out of a whole lot of pulleys and one great big claw.

"Ain't that a beautiful sight to behold?" Lucky said.

"Let's go inside," I replied, utterly transfixed.

Cliff and Foster murmured something in approval.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist some grub." Lucky clapped me on the back, flashing a mischievous smile.

"Yeah," I said, totally ignoring him. Staring instead at all the kids inside. Reading each row of them like lines in a book. Looking everywhere for Misty Mountain. "I'm feeling hungry all of a sudden."

We rounded the corner and entered the building through a very old archway with a very new door. A few steps downward led us into a sunken corridor that smelt strongly of cleaning fluid and vaguely of pizza.

"Safety is a work in progress," Elderberry explained. And as she walked, her hooves once again avoided cracks in the tiles like a deadly game of hopscotch. "We get new students all the time. But there's a whole lot of space. Waiting to be filled."

"You'll have plenty of great spots for hide-and-seek." Iris swept his prosthetic hoof across the air to indicate our vast bounty of options.

"Or hide the horseshoe," Lucky added.

I couldn't get much of a peek. But I made note of the potentiality for hiding spots. In case my friends and I needed to sneak around. It was mostly metal doors with tiny glass windows exposing fragments of dark empty classrooms. 'Till we came to a solid door. With the letter R painted over it.

"If you see a door like this," Elderberry said. "Don't ever go inside."

"Yeah," Iris said. "We got a lot of freedom to move around. But that's, like, the one thing they're dead serious about. Stay away from the letter R."

"Um...okay," I said.

"What's wrong with the letter R?" Cliff asked.

"It stands for Renovation," Elderberry answered. "It means it's not safe inside."

"I thought it stood for Restricted," said Lucky.

"Come on," Iris said. "It means Renovation."

"You sure?"

"Yes," Elderberry answered firmly. She turned, and looked at me with eyes like beads of marble. Cold and pale. "The point is: the letter R is not safe, and they really do ask very little of us here. So this is something we all respect."

"Ah," I said, staring awkwardly at the big red letter painted on the clunky steel door. "Gotcha."

"...Not 'cause you got emotionally educated into avoiding it," Cliff muttered under his breath.

"So anyway," Foster changed the subject in a hurry. "Miss Honey says you've got over three hundred kids here."

"Miss Honey would know," Elderberry said, all reverence-y and such.

"When's the last time you got a new student?" Foster asked.

"Not long," she answered. "Maybe a week or two ago."

"Will we get a chance to meet some of the new kids?" Foster continued. "You know, so we can talk about acclimating?"

"You have each other for that," answered Iris. "You're very fortunate."

"We are," Cliff said with a smile.

Lucky threw a foreleg around Iris' shoulder, tall as it was. "I mean, we're not really set up to put all the new kids together into some kinda New Kids Club, or to separate you from the old timers like me and Iris." She beamed.

Iris chuckled. "Yeah. We don't do things like that. They group us together by, you know...experience. So a lot of your activities are gonna be scheduled with the other Stable Kids."

"Stable kids?" Cliff mouthed silently. Subtly. Foster and I kept quiet and rolled with it.

"But we're all in this together," Lucky added. "If you wanna make some friends with students from all over, go right ahead…"

We came to a pair of double doors, a hoofball-sized window in each one. Foster and Cliff rushed forward to press their faces against the glass. While I stood on my tippy hooves.

On the other side was chaos. Cacophony. Four tables, vibrant with motion, flickered like a flame.

"A real cafeteria," Foster whispered like she was peering into a sacred temple or something.

Cliff Diver seemed less sure. "How many kids are in there?"

"Sixty, maybe," Iris replied. "You need a moment?"

"No," my friends and I answered all at once.

The door opened and a gust of food-smell clobbered my muzzle. Dried ketchup. Oats. Fresh mozzarella cheese, slowly becoming unfresh as it dried under magic heatamajigs. And the kinda earthy musk you only get from cramming sixty ponies into one room. Along with the dirt they all dragged in on their hooves.

The sound was just as clobbery to the senses. Talking, laughing, crying, cheering, shouting. A wall of inarticulate noise, punctuated by occasional hollers.

It was overwhelming.

I couldn't believe it. As apocalyptic as this world was. As makeshift and weird as all their infrastructure may have been, Safety still managed to pull something together much bigger than I'd ever experienced. They had dug two hundred years into Equestria's past just to resurrect the institution known as the Big City School.

Ponyville Elementary had no cafeteria. No prepared food. We didn't even have a regimented class structure. It was basically just Miss Cheerilee doing...whatever. The kinda school that Miss Honey had built, on the other hoof, was a complex organism. The kind I'd only read about in books.

"Wow," Foster said, eyes sparkling. "A cafeteria. A real cafeteria."

The wall of sound warbled as each cluster of kids noticed Cliff Diver's pegasusness one-at-a-time. It sent little silences across the room like waves sweeping over the shore. And little bursts of conversation cropping up again as each clique got over their collective shock, and decided that it was rude to stare.

Cliff bravely held his hooves to the ground and resisted the urge to run. But the rest of him recoiled.

"I've read about this," Foster said. "We have to study all of the benches. Wherever we sit determines our social status within the herd. So we have to choose carefully. But first, we need to find a certain friend."

Cliff peeked out from behind his mane. Saw Foster gently craning her neck up to look him in the eye reassure-ishly.

"Fine," he said. "Let's get this over with." Two deep breaths and a sigh later, he had his head way up high. And his eyeballs darting back and forth, speed reading the sea of kids. "What color is he again?" Cliff whispered.

"What?"

"The kid we're supposed to be looking for." He growled through smiling teeth.

"Oh, right. Blue. With a purple mane." I got back on track. Trying to spot Misty Mountain. But it was no easy task. The crowd was a blur of intermingling colours. Red. Yellow. Pink. Green. More pink. White. Orange. Lavender.

Blue and purple! Blue and purple! My brain shouted at me. Look over there! Blue and purple! A glimmer of hope in the corner of my eye.

But it was just some random colt.

"Stupid brain," I said out loud. "That kid is periwinkle. Misty's cerulean. How do you confuse periwinkle for--;"

"What was that?" Lucky asked with a smile.

"Nevermind."

Shut up, my brain said to my mouth. You're bungling everything.

"Get back to work," my mouth whispered under its breath. And my brain petulantly obeyed. Sought out a familiar face.

First, I spotted a purple mane. But it was a pair of pigtails. Then, I caught a glimpse of the Correct Shade of Blue! But it turned out to belong to a little filly.

"Come on, where are you?" I whispered to myself. Surveying aaall the different colors of aaaall the students' heads, even as they bobbed and weaved like balls getting tossed around a ball pit.

But Iris flanked me out of nowhere. Made me lose track. "Chow's this way."

Next thing I knew, my friends and I were being herded toward the buffet, which was, like, this big hallway with little islands of food hiding under barriers of glass.

Fuck fuck fuck. I giraffed my neck all over the place as the last of the cafeteria passed out of view. Still no sign of Misty! Still no reason to hope.

'Til Cliff cried out suddenly, "Yes!"

"What?" I leapt right at him. "Did you-- "

"I found him!" He whisper-shouted.

"Show me! Show me! Show me!" I said.

Cliff Diver turned to Iris. Bowed politely and said, "Excuse us juuuust a sec."

Cliff hooked a hoof around my shoulder and swept me back the way we'd come. Our tour guides didn't try to stop us or anything, but Lucky gasped, cocked an eyebrow, scratched his head. He hadn't been fazed by Cliff Diver's pegasusness, nor by the rumors of the circumstances of our arrival, nor by our constant suspicion and confusion. But he was weirded the fuck out now.

Cliff Diver skidded on to the main floor of the cafeteria. And dragged me with him. Then plop. His flank hit the floor, and oomph! I slid into him.

In one fluid motion he drew me close with his foreleg. Pointed with the other. "There!"

I followed his hoof. Across the dancing crowd. And squinted.

"There!" He said again. "There! Third from the end!"

All the other kids stepped aside for just a brief moment. In just the right way. Like curtains parting before a stage. And I could see the unicorn colt! Clear as day.

"Cliff," I sighed. "No. That one's periwinkle. Misty is cerulean."

"Are you two okay?" Elderberry Sunset trotted up to us.

"Yeah," Lucky said. "Everypony always has a big reaction to the smorgasbord. But I ain't never seen nopony run away from it."

"We're looking for a friend," Foster came up beside me. Finally herself again.

"Oh," Lucky hung her head. Already mourning our friend without having to hear another word.

"No luck?" Iris asked grimly.

"No," I replied.

"Well, there's still hope," he replied in a tone utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling a fraction of a hope.

The three tour guides gave us some space. And proceeded to the buffet.

"You didn't say anything about cerulean," Cliff snapped. "You just said blue."

The smorgasbord was staffed by a kindly old unicorn. She made sure we all got plenty, but also that none went to waste. She tended the little food islands all alone. Adjusting the glowing red gems above the hot food tables as needed.

It was incredible that Safety managed to have such abundance. All I'd seen of the future world had been total shit. Inhospitable to agriculture.

Where did they get cows for their milk, and chickens for their eggs, or even any of their plantstuffs?

More importantly: what the hell was all this mystery food? For every pizza slice, or oatburger I recognized, there were a dozen weird concoctions. Strange soups. Unfamiliar smells. And twenty or thirty different varieties of nutritional paste – at least that's how the old mare described them.

"Oh, no, no, no," said Bananas Foster. "Thank you. That's enough."

The lunch lady shoveled just a little bit more onto Foster's plate. She was fast. At least when wielding a ladle.

"...I'm just popping in for a light snack. Really. Thank you. Please."

"Okay. If you say so," she said, sneakily splashing an extra dollop of fuchsia paste next to Foster's pizza.

Then she fixed her eyeballs on me. "You two mind your friend here," the old mare said. "I don't want to see any of that go to waste. I won't stand empty bellies either."

Cliff Diver saluted her majestically. "I'm on it."

Foster smiled politely. But the second that her back was turned, Foster's lips twisted into a wince. Changelings can eat pony food when they need to. For show. But they don't enjoy stuffing themselves.

We reached the end of the hallway, and found ourselves back in the cafeteria again. Lucky led us toward an empty table in the corner. "Don't mind Old Ms. Pear Shine," she said. "It's her job to make sure everypony eats."

My eyes scanned the cafeteria. And saw nothing but heads bobbing like roosters over their plates and forks.

"They don't seem to have any trouble doing that on their own," Cliff Diver pointed out before I could.

"Most of them, yeah," Iris jumped in. "But there's a lotta kids here. And everypony has been through something different. Some folks can't wait to fatten up after what they've been through. And some kids...well, let's just say that some of us have a hard time working up that kind of appetite. Ms. Pear Shine really helped me with that when I first got here."

"I understand," said Foster.

Then, with a strange look of confusion - like she was transfixed by some great cosmic light that no one else could see. "I understand?" She said to herself.

"You okay?" I said.

She nodded meekly, rubbing her eyes with her foreleg.

"Oh my gosh, hi!" A little yellow filly came running up to us. And Poomf! Pounced Elderberry Sunset.

"Heeey!" Elderberry twisted around, laughing. Hugging her friend right back. Acting like a normal filly. For once.

"Who are the new kids?" The girl bounced up and down - almost Pinkie-Pie-ishly. "Oh wait." She giggled. "Me first! My name is Skull Gunner. Nice to meet you"

"Skull...?" Cliff startled.

"Mmmhmm. I've been here 762 days, 14 hours, and…" Skull Gunner paused to squint at the far wall all the way on the other end of the cafeteria. There was a clock there, too small for a hawk to read. "I dunno," she concluded at last. "A whole bunch of minutes."

"I'm Bananas Foster."

"I'm Rose Petal."

Cliff remained conspicuously silent. At least 'til Foster nudged him. "Oh, uh...Cliff Diver," he said. "Nice to meet you...Skull…"

"Yeah, I know," the little girl replied with a good-natured eyeroll. "The name throws folks off sometimes...Let's just say that I didn't turn out the way my parents hoped." She paused to kiss a plain brass locket that she kept on a chain around her neck. "That's what's so great about this place, though! It's a second chance. I haven't even gotten my cutie mark yet. But I'm reeeeally hoping it's in skee ball."

"Skee ball?" I said.

"We're all really excited about the skee ball." Lucky said.

"Well, nice to meet you." Skull Gunner continued. "Which stable are you three from?"

"What?"

"They paired you with these bunch of dweebs. so you've gotta be Stable Tec kids. So, which one was it?"

"I DON'T REMEMBER." Cliff and I answered mechanically.

Foster facehooved.

"Oooookay," Skull Gunner replied. "Well, uh, no pressure. That's not how we do things around here."

"No, Skully, it most certainly is not," Elderberry piped up.

"So what do you think of your dorms?" Skully changed the subject. "Pretty sweet, huh?"

"We actually haven't gotten there yet," Foster answered.

"This is just a little stop on the tour," Iris added.

"Oh, jeez," said Skull Gunner. "No wonder you three are so rattled. I'm sorry. I'll just fuck right off, then."

"It was our pleasure." Foster faked a smile. Brought a slice of pizza to her lips.

Skully and Elderberry embraced. And the room got juuuuust a little bit brighter because of it. Then the little yellow filly skipped off. "See ya later, bunker stunkers."

My friends and I sat in silence, watching Skully make her way out the door.

"You weren't actually hungry, were you?" Lucky said.

Cliff Diver lowered the unscathed oatburger he'd been balancing between his hooves. As I dropped the spoon I'd been fidgeting with.

"I'm sorry," Foster answered, mouth totally full. "We really just came here to check for Blueberry Milkshake."

"Go." Iris gestured with his muzzle.

"Do what you gotta do," Lucky added.

My friends and I moved carefully along the wall. Studying each table. We got closer than before. And at last, took a proper count. A really good look.

"Anything?" Foster said.

"Not yet," I replied.

"No," Cliff grumbled. Moving on to the next table.

The other children stared at him. Not all at once, of course. But in little stolen glances. Followed by averted eyes. Like he was a zoo exhibit. The rare elusive birdpone. Legend has it that he actually knows when you're gawking at him, and may even have feelings.

"Ooh!" Bananas Foster cried out. "Is that him over there?" She pointed with her eyes, careful not to draw too much attention to herself.

"No," Cliff said. "Don't you remember? Misty is cerulean. Not periwinkle."

By the time we were done combing the cafeteria in search of a Misty who wasn't there, the sky had faded. I wouldn't quite call it a sunset, but you got the vague impression that the sun - wherever it was - was tucking itself in and getting ready to call it a night.

"Oooh," said Iris, producing a coat from his saddle bag. "We'd better get going." He passed out light jackets that he had apparently been entrusted with. All the right size, all color coordinated to match us. Foster's was a shade of yellow that didn't quite suit her. Mine was a pink that matched only the single streak in my mane. It wasn't perfect, but somepony had clearly put thought into it, and done the best they could with what they had.

"Yeah, there might be werewolves." Cliff snorted, sliding on a blue jacket with gray trim.

We moved at a brisk trot down the city streets. I wouldn't exactly call it a rush, but there was definitely an edge to it. No more drifting. No moseying neither. We all had places to be.

"What happens at dark?" Foster asked the obvious question.

"Just a headcount," Iris said. "We have a lotta freedom to move around the campus, but they take attendance a couple times a day."

"If you don't show up on time, they worry." Elderberry added.

"You don't want to see Miss Honey worry," Iris added.

I couldn't quite imagine what a worried Miss Honeysuckle might look like, but judging from the way that Lucky shuddered? Fair bet it wouldn't involve a fainting couch.

"Ain't nothin' to panic about," Lucky said. "We got plenty of time."

So the pastel-colored buildings glided by. And it finally sunk in just how big the campus was, even for a student body with a few hundred kids. So many structures. So many streets. So many windows with students behind them. Peeking at Cliff Diver, all curious-like.

So many mysteries. Like the sprite bot floating down the street. The same kind that the High Priestess of Trottica'd had.

"Fuck!" I skidded to a halt. Hooves tumbling over one another, all clip-cloppity. 'Til wham! The ground said hello to my face.

"Ugh," I groaned.

A thunderstorm of hooves rushed to my aid, unwittingly kicking dust in my face.

"Are you okay?" They all cried out. Not quite in unison.

"Get down," I coughed.

And oddly enough, all of them did. None of that what's going on? Why are you acting weird? Kinda stuff. They just hit the deck on my say-so, and were prepared to save the questions for later.

My hoof pointed. And all their heads followed the invisible line it made. 'Til...

Ahhhh. Our tour-guides let out a collective sigh of relief.

"No need to fear," Lucky said without a hint of condescension. "That's just Beatrice. She's on our side."

"She?" I said.

"We all voted on the name," Iris answered.

"What exactly does Beatrice do?" Foster asked, calmly brushing herself off.

"Keeps an eye on things."

Beatrice spun around to look at us. It was basically a floating sphere with panes of glowing green glass for eyes. Like those cute things that destroyed our fucking town last year. But sciencey. This one was wearing novelty glasses. The kind with a nose and mustache that Pinkie Pie sometimes wore.

"The costume was Skully's idea," Elderberry boasted.

With Cliff's help, I rose to my hooves. Never taking my eyes off the damn thing. Beatrice floated there momentarily. Keeping a respectful distance. Then dismissed us, and puttered on. A long diagonal trajectory up the road.

That's when I saw the strangest fucking building on campus. It wasn't content to stick to one or two solid colors like all of its friends. No. The whole thing was a giant mural. Fillies laughing. Doe-eyed critters of an indeterminate species, frolicking in rainbow rivers. Big pink hearts with smiley faces on them. Words like Hope and Friendship randomly floating in the clouds.

"No windows," I whispered to myself. It made the cutesy artwork seem even bolder. 'Cause none of it was interrupted by panes of glass. Just thin metal grates, spaced out where windows ought to be. That meant the inside got no natural light. No fresh air.

"Be careful." Elderberry leaned into my field of vision. "You don't want to end up in there."
…
…
…

That building drew me into a staring contest. And I was afraid to look away. There were no Rose Voices or brain hornets or anything like that to direct me. But something deep in my gut still churned. Just to look at those exaggerated mural smiles. Those thin little slats of metal.

I sensed pain inside. A lot of it.

Bananas Foster came up behind me. Put a hoof on my shoulder. I could feel her heart thundering away. Even where I stood.

Whatever was going on in there, she sensed it too.

The air grew cold before the sky had even finished fading. A gust of wind funneled down the narrow city street and blasted like breath through a flute. It made us all glad we had those coats.

"Almost there," said Lucky.

Up ahead was a great big fucking wall. Not quite as gigantorily gargantuan as the one we saw when we'd first arrived. (You know, the one with all the crazy razor wire on top). More like another warehouse. Drawing a border between Safety and whatever was outside of it. More Grownuptown I can only presume.

"This way," Elderberry Sunset swung down one of the side streets, eager to escape the wind.

We all followed. Into this weird...alleyway, but not full of trash and smoke and stuff. A clean alley. Sure, there were crates and bins and pipes and other, you know, alley junk, but every scrap of it was arranged juuuuust so. Like when Sapphire Shores did that photo shoot outside of a Bucklyn loading dock to show off that she and her dancers had humble beginnings. On the Street they called it. Not her best album.

Anyway, everything - even the nitty gritty of everyday life in Safety - looked just a little bit too...orderly. Every curve. Every line. A dangling ladder caught my eye. I followed it and found myself staring straight upward. It's easy to underestimate how tall these buildings are until you stand in between them, look up at the sky, and get super dizzy.

I had never been to a big city before.

That alleyway was sooooo alien to me. Like a pony-made ravine. A chasm formed by two pony-made towers, easily five, or six, or even seven stories tall. It's impressive that Safety had managed to repair so much. Even more impressive that Equestria had ever built such structures in the first place.

Clang! A tin can rolled out from the shadows.

I had fallen behind just enough that nopony seemed to notice it but me. So I crept up. Thinking there might be a cute possum or raccoon or something.

That's when I noticed him.

A grownup in a blue jumpsuit. The kind of outfit that Mr. Goggles had worn. He reached for the can with his teeth, but froze the moment he saw me. For a teeny tiny sliver of a second, our eyes met. And his were paralyzed by terror. It hurt to be looked at like that. To be feared. It felt like I was standing over a cowering Kettle Corn all over again.

"Here you go," I kicked the can toward him. To show I meant no harm. But he bolted into the shadows again. Like a dragon was on his tail. Slammed one of the bins shut and darted into an adjacent building.

"Don't talk to them," Lucky whispered, voice chillier than the gusts of wind. "They don't like it."

"Sorry," I answered instinctively. "I was just trying to--;"

"Come on!" Elderberry Sunset turned around.

Lucky threw a foreleg around me. All buddy buddy. To get me to shut up about the terrified jumpsuit pony. I took the hint.

"The lights are on," Elderberry said, waving her hoof at the buzzing lanterns. "Let's get inside." She disappeared around a street corner.

"What's going on?" I whispered carefully to Lucky.

"Elderberry Sunset is like a sister to me," she replied. "You all are. But she don't know how to bend a rule, you know what I'm saying?"

"I won't tell if you won't," I said.

Lucky smiled at me. "You're alright."

"But what's up with the ponies in the blue jumpsuits?" I asked.

"I'll explain later," Lucky answered. "We should get inside."

Home at last, the lobby was pretty swank. Couches. Tables. A little cutting board with crackers and something-resembling-cheese, just lying around for anypony to snack on.

But the chairs were all empty. By the time we set hoof inside, headcount was already over. The elevator doors had creaked shut, and the arrow above them was climbing.

"Hay!" An adult male voice cried out. Laughing. Jubilant. "Ya made pretty good time."

Iris' eyeballs followed the elevator arrow in confusion.

"Bah!" The stranger chuckled. "Miss Honey said you was orienting, so I figgered you might run a little late." The stallion was thick. Middle aged. Hard-hat-yellow. With stubble like velcro. His voice sounded kinda crude, like a Manehattan cab driver's. "You must be Bananas Foster," he said, using his nose to poke at one of those clipboards that uses light instead of paper. "Aaand Cliff Diver." He nodded in Cliff's direction. "And...Rose Petal." He winked at me. "Did I get dat right?"

We nodded in agreement.

"Well, I'm Cherry Fizz. Nice to meetcha. Step into my office."

He led us to a circle of couches. Plopped himself down with a groan. We gathered 'round.

"You three get oriented okay?"

We looked to our tour guides. Nodded proudly. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good," Cherry Fizz replied. "So you know about emotional education then. I'm gonna schedule you for tomorrow morning after breakfast. That sound okay to you? You a morning pony?"

"Actually. I prefer to sleep in," I said, feeling the sudden desire to crash.

"It's fine," Foster cut me off.

"Okie dokie loki. After breakfast it is. We'll hold off on any classes 'till you've settled in a bit."

"We want classes," Foster said.

"Hmph," Cliff grunted in frustration.

"This place is full of so many interesting kids. I reeeally wanna meet them all. Don't you?" Foster turned away from Cherry Fizz and looked to Cliff with eyeballs like flaming coals.

"Oh, um. Yeah," Cliff replied. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

Cherry Fizz turned to me. Awaiting an answer. But I didn't say a word. 'Cause way on the other end of the lobby was a portrait.

It called to me. Like the haunted painting in Pinkbeard and the Isle of Hypnosia, there was a sort of madness to it.

I rose from my chair. A body possessed. And walked right past Cherry Fizz. All the sights around me. All the sounds. They faded. 'Til it was just me and the stallion in that picture. I recognized the face.

The strange figure was sitting in Safety's courtyard. Laughing. Petting a kitten. A foal sat giggling in his lap. And a streak of sunlight seemed to cut through the Wasteland's cloud ceiling just to shine on him. But half of him was made of metal. And he had an artificial eye that looked like it was made out of rubies.

I remembered that face from Pinkie Pie's tarot deck. Crudely drawn though it may have been. The Emperor.

"Who is this?" I said, struggling to make a sound.

"That's the guy who makes all this possible.” Cherry Fizz answered with just a touch of pride.

I leaned in closer. A small plaque adorned the bottom of the frame: