//------------------------------//
// "I Really Hate Dogs." 
// Story: Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

The six of us squeezed into a small room with a desk, a bookcase, a window, and our two young guests.  Crinkle Paper took the opportunity to lean against me; I'd normally appreciate the intimacy but it made me more nervous.  She gave me a look and I smiled, taking deep breaths through my nose.

Lavender Lather asked, "Anypony see Wolf Run?  No?  White Stockings?"  

I stood face-on in the middle of the six, my cutie mark hidden.  I hoped that with the khaki uniform shirt and the straw hat I'd purposely put back on after relaying the summons, I'd be a fully forgettable functionary to Sunset Shimmer, despite her turquoise eyes alighting on me.  I carefully hid my slight Hooflyn accent as I said, "No ma'am.  Nopony has seen him in a while.  Nopony has mentioned seeing him."  I looked directly into Brandywine's amber eyes and added, "Sorry son, I've searched all the restriction zones and he's in none of them."  In other words, presumed dead.  "Ma'am."

"Yes."  She coughed and I expected her to give the unfortunate news, but instead she stepped from behind her desk between us and the youngsters.  "Here is a fact, one that nopony needs to know except you, and by nopony I mean Jewel Fang most of all.  Princess Celestia pardoned Wolf Run.  Brandywine here believes the stallion got sent—"

"Not believes," stated the colt over Sunset Shimmer saying at the same time, "Was sent."  The couple looked at one another.  Adorable.  Sunset Shimmer pursed her lips contritely as Brandywine continued.  "I watched Celestia send him.  He's here."

"Well, then—sent.  If anypony sees Wolf Run—"

"Ma'am?" I prompted. 

When she looked at me, I stepped out enough to speak into her ear.  "The colt looks distressed.  It would be a small gesture to gallop to the outlying settlements and the group of restraint zones the Princess typically uses for landings."

"Yes, I think we can do that.  Crinkle Paper, go to the Cerberus Gate."  Crinkle Paper shuddered at the news as the warden named assignments, finally sending me to the western mountain restraint zones I'd reminded her of.

Wonderful!  This did not seem to go with the put Sunset Shimmer, White Stockings, and Cerberus in the same place at the same time plan destiny-thing.  And, as little as Crinkle Paper shared about her courage issues, I knew she didn't like going south.

After being dismissed, I stopped Crinkle Paper in the hall outside.  "Wait," I said.

"No.  I'd rather just do this."  She turned away, hiding her eyes behind her mane as she tried to walk away.

I stepped in front of her.

Before I could say anything, Lavender Lather stepped out of her office, saying, "And we need help fixing some of the equipment upstairs.  With your unfettered horn, Brandywine, you could be a great help."

The warden stopped at the refectory, operated the door with a hoof, and looked at me as she ushered them inside.  I turned to Crinkle Paper and said, "You don't have to—"

I stood between her and a dead-end hall behind her and the refectory and the stairs behind me.  She said, "I may look like I'm still twenty-two but you know better, White Stockings."  She lowered her head and moved as if to push me out of the way.

I stepped backwards, slowly.  "You don't understand," I said, but I couldn't add that I really needed to go to the Cerberus Gate.

She said, "Do I make a fuss when you go on walk-about for weeks?"

"No."

Lavender Lather took that moment to back out of the refectory.  We didn't quite bump, but she turned quickly and said, "What's this?"

"Ma'am," I said, "Send me to the Cerberus Gate."

"No."

"Why, ma'am?"

"Are you giving the orders, now?"

"No, ma'am.  It's just—"

The warden addressed Crinkle Paper.  "Is he trying to protect you?"

"Absolutely not!"

Lavender Lather narrowed her eyes, looked at Crinkle Paper, then me.  "She didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

To Crinkle Paper: "You didn't tell him about you and dogs?"

The flaxen mare hung her head and groaned.  

The warden said, "Maybe now she'll grow up.  And no.  Most importantly I am sending you to the western mountains because you've explored the terrain.  I'm sending Crinkle Paper because she knows the area and the ponies who live there, and other things."

The warden marched away as Crinkle Paper stood gasping.

"Dogs?" I asked unthinkingly, really putting my hoof into it.

Crinkle Paper turned and bucked me in the flank hard enough to sting.  She hissed, "I was mauled by Duke Baying Hound's dogs when I was a foal.  I lost a leg.  When I came here, I was horribly scarred, crippled, and monstrous.  I really hate dogs, even things that remind me of dogs.  And every warden has passed down that fact since I arrived.  And, if this shows up in your encyclopedia I will never speak to you again!"

Sobbing, she galloped away.

"I'm sorry!" I called after her, then kicked the wall putting a horseshoe-shaped dent into it.  I'd have to fix that, assuming I was here tomorrow.

I had to have faith that today had to turn out such that I gave Sunset Shimmer the message.  Grumbling all the way to the supply room, I checked out a canteen, filled it, and galloped off.  I ignored Jewel completely, even when she did her hoop trick, biting her tail and rolling like a wheel.  She kept up with me until the ground became uneven outside the last field of cabbage.

When she stopped, she shouted invective at me.

In considerably better physical shape than when I arrived in Tartarus, I reached the first foothills in about an hour.  There weren't many Equestrian trees in the central region, but they became more numerous with elevation.  Windblown oaks dotted the landscape.  I approached a group of them to find shade and to satisfy my curiosity.  

I looked into the canopy, trying to adjust my eyes to the shade.  I found no rainbow crows.  Jewel had observed earlier that none were overhead.  You inevitably saw a few on roof tops or in the fields.  They liked trees.

I saw none.  Had seen none.

Very strange.  Heartening, though.  It supported my time theory.  Anything that disrupted time could disrupt anything, which meant the more things were disrupted, the more likely I was going to succeed.

I drank some water and stared across the dry grass plain, watching the dry wind wave through the seed heads causing them to make a random sishing sound.

Lonely.  It felt isolated and lonely.

I'd miss Crinkle Paper.  And now I'd pissed her off.   

I felt rested.  I needed to get my survey done quickly so I could return to Central and find my opportunity to interact with Sunset Shimmer to do what time required of me.

I sighed, capped my canteen with my hooves and swung it over my back messenger-bag style.  

I didn't need to go much further to figure out that going into the western mountains to visit the restraint zone was an exceedingly bad idea.  I heard the ripping thumping sound of something running through the grass, then saw movement and shadows.  I was close enough to a big isolated tree that I slipped into the shade to hide.

Dharg!

What little I had learned about the weird creature (creatures?) I'd learned from Phospher and Marvelous, who'd been committed a few years after the Dharg had landed their raiding ship outside what was now Vanhoover.  What I saw resembled the auburn ropey-hairy leg of a yak or a bison.  Just the leg.  It was as wide around as a small tree with a shiny black cloven hoof.  Where the upper leg should have connected to a body, an eye-ball with a magenta iris scanned the horizon.  My observations showed that a "disassembled" dharg could breathe and travel, and fight, but nothing else.  The communal-mind animal need three or more dharg to form something that could eat, a tripod somehow making a mouth with teeth and a stomach.  Six or more could talk and reason.  Larger combinations sometimes occurred, but seemed ungainly, and, if anything, less smart.

The princess had captured the raiding party of two dozen "pieces."  The sixes often threw themselves at the magic bubble around their restraint zone and babbled when I spent time watching them.  The singletons just kicked things.  They had a strange center of gravity and always managed to instantly roll back onto the hoof.

The nightmares were deadly.  They liked to kick their foes (obviously) to death, then eat them.  And now I saw one roaming free across the savanna.  It stopped and I ducked deeper into the shadows, heart pounding in my chest.  I could hear its weird clopping cadence as it continued on its way.  I was breathing fast like I'd run a marathon.  I felt the rough bark of the tree backed around to stay out of sight until I judged the dharg had disappeared over a hill.

Had I sent Crinkle Paper this way—  I shuddered.  

What would she find heading south?  I shuddered again.

I cautiously headed back, after looking for and not finding rainbow crows in the tree.  Tartarus' protection system had stopped working—the law of unintended consequences had taken control.

I found myself reflexively feeling guilty.  After wallowing in it for five minutes, I realized I hadn't caused this.  Twilight Sparkle had.

I had to deal with it.

At least until I gave Sunset Shimmer the message nothing would kill me.

I saw a trio of aurochs, deep brown ox-like bovines with great upwardly curved white horns in the distance.  Aurochs were sometimes referred to as cave-cattle.  They were giants, easily a couple pony-lengths at the shoulder and massively muscular.  They weren't anywhere close to as smart as cows or bulls, but they did like to create territories and these brothers had no compunction about goring intruding ponies.  They'd told me plenty of stories that almost inevitably ended with some-aurochs gloriously goring some other aurochs, or somepony else.

I veered south, unprepared to find out if they were still friendly.  Even were my horn unfettered, I was a magic wimp.  My special talent required contact, physically or magically, and time to convince or coerce verbally, and only worked on one pony at a time.  It might not even work on non-ponies!  I gave the Brothers Moo a wide margin, though they looked very happy grazing on real pasture land.

Having left the western road long ago, I ended up quite a bit south when I met the outer circle road.  I could follow it around going north to meet the east-west spoke or going south to meet the north-south spoke.  I had no doubt that some other pony would return with news that the restraint zones weren't working.  I figured that Lavender Lather wasn't expecting me back yet, either, so I chose south.  I might be in a position to intercept Sunset going south, as she had to go to find Cerberus.  As I galloped along, I also thought about Crinkle Paper, what I had learned and what I had done.

Her route included the Kibble Forest, a minor barrier against wandering high security inmates.  However, the road dead-ended in a saltwater lake and restraint zones for oceanic denizens.  Some of those monsters were especially dangerous.

I galloped faster.  

When I got to the crossroads, I galloped south on the north-south road through fields of wild wheat and oat.  The still distant forests formed a dark brown and green blotchy line on the horizon with the curved blue gray mountains beyond.  Geyser Peak seemed to steam; it was the source of the dark clouds that spread as a dark gray line east and west over the circle mountains.  I continued only five minutes before I spotted a shape in the waving golden grass.  It would have blended in perfectly had I not been moving so fast that I noticed a flash as sunlight reflected off something glossy.

I slowed, trying to make it out.  When I saw the bright reflection had sparked off of a platinum mane, I dashed off the road to find Crinkle Paper lying sprawled on her side.