Maud awoke to a rocking sensation. She blinked her eyes open and found Pinkie shaking her and grinning from ear to notched-up-ear.
“Maud, Maud, Maud,” Pinkie was saying.
“What is it?” Maud sat up in alarm.
Maud looked across the room and saw her father sitting up in his bed, drinking a big bowl of warm soup and being hugged relentlessly by Limestone and Marble.
“Maud,” Cloudy Quartz greeted her, still sitting beside the bed. “You’re awake. Good. It is most remarkable but it seems your Pa is returning to health.”
Maud breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re really well again?”
“Aye,” her Pa said. He sipped soup and then tussled the manes of his closest daughters. “I feel my strength return at last. This morning I eat, I take water, and I am proud to hug my family for the first time in weeks.”
Pinkie bounded from the cot and landed on the bigger bed, snuggling up beside her Pa and her other sisters.
“It must be the Healing Stone,” Ma went on.
“The stone?” Maud blinked.
“It knows we are near,” Pa said. “As we get closer so too do I recover. The Healing Stone reached out to us now and gives me strength. Once I come before it fully I will be well again. I look forward to joining the town in the construction of our new home.”
“Oh, thank the stones,” Ma said, putting a gentle hoof on her husband’s foreleg.
Maud frowned at their behaviour, but relented soon enough. It mattered most that Pa was well. If it helped him to believe it was the Healing Stone then all the better for him and for Ma.
Maud got up and went to give her father a big hug.
“Aye, Maud,” he said. “I do better now.”
The sun was only just rising beyond the hills outside the window. Maud did not recognise the landscape. They had travelled very far in the night and would soon be arriving in the west.
Maud was trying to imagine her new life when she heard the quiet sobbing.
“Pinkie?” Maud said.
“What’s wrong?” Marble asked.
“Augh. She’s so emotional,” Limestone complained.
Pinkie’s shoulders shook and she struggled to hold back the tears.
“Pinkie, don’t be sad,” Maud said, reaching over to her.
Pinkie turned her head and crawled to the foot of the bed. “I’m—” she gasped. “I’m—sorry. I tried—tried—to make this—work,” she was saying through the sobs. “But now—” she gasped. “Now—now it—hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.”
Pinkie curled up and clutched at her head. Maud went straight to her but didn’t know what to do.
“Pinkie,” Maud said, trying to think. “Pinkie, don’t look at it. Whatever’s hurting you just don’t look at it.”
“But it’s everywhere now!” Pinkie wailed. “The pattern is wrong and only fire comes to pass! Ahh! There’s nowhere home from this place. I tried—” she gasped. “I tried—I tried—to make it work—to be a good pony—I tried—I tried but I can’t! I can’t make the patterns work.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Limestone asked.
“Oh dear,” Ma said. “It seems the true power of the Healing Stone has not yet reached us. Let us hope that we will fast be with—”
“No!” Maud interrupted suddenly. “She doesn’t like it. We’re going the wrong way.”
“Maud, dear, do not—” Ma warned.
“We have to go back,” Maud said. “Pinkie wants to go back. I need to help her!”
“Eldest, listen to reason,” Pa began. “Pinkamina’s pain comes from within. The Healing Stone will see her pain and it will sooth her. She will heal and she will be well again.”
“I…” Maud looked at the worried faces around the room. “I… I don’t know what to do.”
“Trust in the Healing Stone,” Ma told her. “We will soon be there.”
Maud leaned down by her sobbing sister. “Pinkie? Pinkie, tell me what to do.”
Pinkie grit her teeth and scrunched her eyes. “Wait…” she gasped softly. She groaned and flattened her ears. “Wait for… the gates to open. The river flows backwards. You don’t… need… to be a rock. You only need… to be… a leaf.”
“I don’t understand,” Maud whispered to her.
“I will ask the conductor how far we have to go,” Ma said, getting up to leave.
“I’ll go with you,” Pa said, getting carefully out of bed. “My legs are still a shaky sort but I feel the desire to walk again, as I have not done in so long.”
“Come then. We will go together,” Cloudy Quartz said.
Igneous leaned against her as they exited the compartment and the door slid shut behind them.
Limestone and Marble crowded in close.
“What’s wrong with Pinkamina?” Limestone demanded.
“Is she going to die?” Marble asked nervously.
“No,” Maud insisted. “You’re not, right? Pinkie?”
Pinkie shook her head. “Wait for the river… Wait for the change…”
“Pinkie, I don’t understand,” Maud begged her. “I should have given the potion to you instead.”
“No!” Pinkie gripped her suddenly. “Pa had no time! It was for him. Zecora was right. There is no potion to take Pinkie away from Pinkie. And no stone can fix me. I am shards! Shards of sky are in my eyes!” She clutched her head and wailed again.
“Pinkie…” Maud begged her.
The other two sisters hugged close to Maud’s side, fearful and uncertain.
“I wish I could help you,” Maud was saying. “I want to help you but I’m not strong enough. I just let things happen and I hope that they’ll get better but they don’t. They get worse. I can’t move. I can’t… see.” Maud shut her eyes. “I don’t know what to do…”
Pinkie stoped shaking and groaning. She lifted a forehoof and wiped at Maud’s face.
“There they are,” Pinkie said. “The flood gates open. The river changes. The rock can’t move, but the leaf will float.”
The train rumbled to a stop and the whistle blew.
Maud opened her wet eyes and heaved a shaky breath. “We’ve stopped moving.”
“Yeah,” Limestone said.
Maud frowned with determination. “We need to keep moving.”
“Why?” Marble asked.
Maud looked to the compartment door. Then she looked down at the three little fillies crowded around her.
She drew a deep breath and blinked the last of her tears away.
“Limestone,” Maud began. “I’m sorry you felt that I was smothering you. I was always hanging around and I didn’t give you your space to be you. It’s very important that you can be you. Each of you.”
Limestone shook her head. “That’s okay. I know you were just worried about me. But I can look after myself. I’m a big pony.” She stood up and grinned. “I’m a timberwolf! Rarrr!”
Maud smiled. She looked over at her other sister. “Marble. I think I was too much like Ma, with you. I’m not supposed to be your Ma. I was supposed to be your sister. Your friend. I was supposed to stand up for you—not tell you what to do. I should have been more like Limestone; playing games instead of teaching lessons.”
Marble peeked out from behind her fringe. “Mm. But I understand, too.”
Maud scooped them both closer and hugged them tight.
“Look out for each other,” Maud said, not letting go. “Limestone, you be you, and be good to Marble. And Marble, don’t let Limestone get into too much trouble. Always look out for each other and you’ll do fine. Can you promise me that?”
Limestone and Marble both nodded.
“You’re the big sister now, Limestone,” Maud whispered. “Do me proud.”
“What’s going on?” Limestone asked.
Maud let them go and wiped at her face. “I have to move. I have to go with Pinkie and follow the river. I know what she needs now. Or at least, I know who to go to for help. Tell Ma and Pa we love them and not to look for us, because we can’t stay here. We have to go.”
Maud suddenly scooped Pinkie up across her back and hurried with her out of the compartment.
“Maud?”
She heard her sisters calling her name. Then she heard Ma and Pa calling from further up the train. Maud just carried on running down the hallway with Pinkie on her back. She ran to the next car, and the next, and the next, until she was at the back of the train and leapt out onto the tracks.
She heard the steam whistle of another train, pulling out from the station and going in the opposite direction. Back home. Back to the rest of Equestria.
“Hold on,” Maud said.
Pinkie hugged her tight and shut her eyes.
Maud’s hooves kicked off and she bolted towards the escaping train. It was slowly gathering speed but Maud reached for every bit of strength she had as shot after it, running hard beside the tracks. The wheels clicked uncomfortably close. She could taste the smoke in the air. But she could see the open car just a little way ahead. It was pink with a purple roof and bundles of soft hay just waiting inside.
Her legs began to ache. Her breath was hard and fast—burning in her chest. The smoke made her eyes water but she kept pushing forward. For Pinkie. For her sister. Maud grit her teeth as she drew up beside the open car. Just a little further forward. She calculated the approaching jump. A rock in her path might just be tall enough but she needed to be further along. Head down, hooves strong. A little further. Just a little further.
Maud bounded onto the rock, turned sharply and sprang left towards the moving train.
Everything was questions in that moment.
Then Maud’s hooves struck the train car floor and she slid, crashing into a hay bale. The hay lurched back and tipped over the opposite edge of the open car, dashing itself to bits on the rocky ground rushing past. Maud’s forelegs slid over open space, treading air for a moment before something caught her and pulled her back from the brink.
Pinkie heaved at Maud’s tail until she was safely back inside the car. Then both ponies collapsed to the floor, panting hard. The train car rumbled. The wheels clicked along the tracks. Outside the unfamiliar hills moved past in reverse this time.
“Are you okay?” Maud huffed at last.
Pinkie sat up and nodded. “Thankyou.”
“Thank you for the rescue,” Maud sighed. She winked. “Adventurer.”
Pinkie giggled.
“Did I…?” Maud started. She looked at Pinkie. “Did I do the right thing?”
Pinkie lay down in front of her and scrunched her face. “Hurts less. Still bad patterns but getting better. You were right, though. I need to control this. Seeing is not the same as knowing.” Pinkie shook her head. “The Healing Stone couldn’t help me. Pinkie didn’t get better and that made ponies scared. Scared of me. They whisper because Pinkie sees things and knows things. Things she shouldn’t. Ma and Pa listen to their oldways again. Kinponies have oldways that whisper about Pinkies. I will not be kindling for their whispers.” Pinkie shuddered. “Better patterns this way. See more paths to better things.”
The morning sun beamed in through the open car. It felt soothing after such exertion. Maud smiled as she lay there.
“I think I’m going to rest for a bit now,” Maud said. “Will you watch over me this time?”
Pinkie nodded. She reached up into her mane and drew out a small grey pebble.
“Boulder…” Maud smiled. “So that’s where you were hiding…”
Pinkie put the little rock down between Maud’s hooves. “Boulder wants to know where we’re going,” Pinkie said.
Maud closed her eyes and sighed. “Ponyville… We’re going to Ponyville. To see Zecora.”