//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12 
// Story: Death Rides a Pale Mare 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

Pale showed up on Nan’s doorstep in Las Pegasus having not paused to sleep or eat since leaving Manehattan. Night had fallen, but Pale didn’t care about who she might be disturbing. She hammered on the door until Nan opened it.

“Nan! I-” Pale’s words caught.

Nan looked at her, calmly taking in Pale’s expression. “You’d better come inside.”

She led Pale through the door to the kitchen, where they sat down at the table. Pale stared at he hooves. Her mouth was tight and she swallowed hard. She’d had the whole trip to think about what she was going to say, and still didn’t even know how to begin.

“I think I know what this is about,” said Nan.

Pale’s head shot up. Nan said, “Just after I saw you last, a mare came to my door and kissed me as soon as I opened it. She said she knew what I was and that she could give me all the love I wanted.” A smirk passed over her lips, and she snorted. “I told her to leave me alone. I could tell she was lying anyway, though I couldn’t figure out why. But then, I began to feel strange.”

Pale could see where this was headed. Changelings’ mastery over their own bodies allowed them to feel even the slightest disturbance.

Nan said, “She must have given me something, but I don’t know what. None of the symptoms match anything I’ve ever heard of.”

“Did she tell you her name?” Pale asked.

“No, but her cutie mark was a cinnamon stick.”

Pale’s teeth clenched. Her suspicions were correct, then. Somehow, the Blight was being passed without blooms.

But solving that mystery wasn’t why she was here.

Pale looked at Nan, attempting to mentally describe what she was feeling. Changelings were specialized to interpret emotion. It helped them blend in and read targets. Pale knew how emotions were supposed to feel - grief, joy, love - but she’d shunned any remnants of the hive when she’d left. If she still possessed any such ability, it was long dormant. 

So why was it only now that she wished to fall into the deep water of feeling? Pale’s own emotions were as much a mystery to her as anypony else’s. Surely there was something else she was supposed to feel besides an acidic pain in her chest. Something, anything.

“I take it you know this pony,” said Nan, bringing Pale back to the now.

Pale wasn’t able to do anything more than nod. Nan had to know about the Blight, but Pale couldn’t think how to even begin. “I...need to tell you...”

Nan looked at her evenly, patiently giving Pale time to speak.

“You… you’re going to start feeling reckless and destructive. In about a month, you’re going to want to find a crowd and then you’ll start coughing and infect everypony around you. Then, you’ll...die.” Pale took a deep breath, as if she’d been holding it. She looked at her hooves.

Nan reached across the small table to touch her. “Ah,” she murmured, the single word carrying more weight than it had any right to. “Ah, deary me. I suspected this. It’s in my lungs and everywhere else and still growing fast.”

“It’s not right that you got pulled into this.” Pale tried to keep her tone level, but only partially succeeded.

“It’s not your fault.” Nan smiled, and not for her own benefit.

Pale started to protest, to point out how her previous visit had started this, but Nan reassured her. “You didn’t mean for this to happen. And you know what? Just seeing you again makes it up to me.”

She got up. “Would you like some tea? Something relaxing?”

Pale looked at her. “Tea?”

“Well, we’ll have to make the moments we have left count.”

Pale looked away and nodded.

Nan went into the kitchen and back in a few minutes with the tea set, cups already full.

The two of them talked. The topic meandered as the hours passed, neither one making any effort to correct it. The avoided talking about the past, neither finding the topic appealing. Living in the moment was so much better.

Nan did not ask how Pale knew Canella or about the disease. In fact, they didn’t discuss the Blight at all. The conversation was normal small talk. Startlingly normal. Perhaps the most normal, small talk conversation Pale had ever had. It was nice. She hadn’t known what she was missing, just having somepony to talk to.

It was late when Pale had arrived, and even later when Nan yawned. “I suppose we should call it a night. You’re welcome to my spare bed.”

“I would like that,” Pale admitted.

Nan took the tea set back to the kitchen and showed Pale to her room. She paused in the doorway as Pale sat down on the bed. “You know, it makes me happy to see you all grown up. You’re your own pony now, and there’s something beautiful about that.”

Pale wanted to say something, but didn’t know what.

Nan smiled. “Maybe that’s just the contrast from the hive, getting out and being yourself.”

“I’m glad you were there for me,” said Pale. “So I got the chance.”

And what had Pale done with it?

But Nan didn’t judge her. She just leaned forward to give Pale a hug goodnight. “Sleep well.”





Pale did sleep well, surprising herself. She woke to the morning light in the window, an experience she’d rarely gotten. Living in a cave was a lot like living in the hive. Maybe that was part of why Nan had also left.

It was still early. Pale made the bed and went into the kitchen to get a drink.

The tea set was still beside the sink. Curiously, Nan had washed Pale’s cup and put it away, but her own still sat there by itself, stained with tea. Beside it sat a prescription bottle. Pale picked it up. Sleeping pills.

Her gut clenched and she bolted for the master bedroom. She slammed open the door, but Nan did not stir. She lay beneath the sheets in the form of her cover identity, peaceful and still.

Nan had done what Pale had dreaded she would have to.

Pale closed her eyes for several seconds. When she opened them again, she took one last look at Nan, and then quietly said goodbye.

Nan would have wanted Pale to have what little she possessed. Pale found a few bits. Nan had little else of value, sentimental or otherwise, and anyway, Pale knew there was nothing more important to her than memories.

She started to conceal any evidence that she had been there, but realized Nan had taken care of that, too, even washing Pale’s teacup.

Humbled with the knowledge that even faced with her own death Nan could still be thinking of her, Pale quietly left the house.





“Where have you been?” Coin hurriedly asked as Pale came into the cave. “Piper wasn’t saying anything, but I think even he was worried about how long you’d been gone. And that’s even with tracking you via parasprite.”

“We need to have a meeting,” said Pale curtly. “Get everypony.”

Coin trotted away as Pale entered the main room. Piper was there. He looked at her, saying nothing. He looked like perhaps he wanted to.

The others arrived one by one. Pale had rushed in without a clear plan, but she knew what she needed to say.

Piper, Mirror, Jolly, Shard, Hammer, Shadow, Whisper, Coin, and Tietack. All of them looked at her.

Without preamble, Pale said, “They exist.” 

She indicated the map etched on the wall of the cave, its many notes spread over the stone. “It looks like we were right. There’s a group out there spreading the Blight.”

Pale didn’t stop to take in the others’ reactions. She went on. “I found one of them.” With a nod to Piper, she explained, “She was following Helix Histone, waiting for one of us to show up. They know about us.”

She pulled out the veil with Canella’s spit on it. “They’re somehow spreading the Blight with fluid transfer. I have a sample. They’re infected, and infectious, but somehow not blooming. Furthermore, they know about the Blight and are intentionally spreading it. They’re aware enough to realize we’ve been eliminating twitchers and used Helix Histone as bait to try and catch us. I don’t know how many of them are out there, or how to identify them.”

Silence stretched out for several seconds. Jolly cleared his throat. “Any good news?”

Pale hesitated. She couldn’t even put together a comeback to lighten the mood. “No.”

Piper spoke in a calm, measured tone. “The guild has been around for a long time. This is another storm to weather, and we have the advantage of experience. Even in the best maintained fields, there are weeds. We’ll find them and root them out.”

“Did you catch their name?” Whisper asked Pale. “Something they go by?”

“No.”

“Oh!” said Shadow, her eyes lighting up with an idea. She raised a foreleg. “All in favor of ‘Weeds?’”

The vote was unanimous.

“I’ll need anything else you can tell me,” said Piper, turning to Pale. Pale nodded. The others took the cue that the meeting was over, and began to file out.

Pale turned, calling, “Shard?”

He came over. Pale showed him the bundled veil with Canella’s blood and saliva on it. “She spit at me. I think that’s one way they use to pass the infection.”

Shard nodded. “I’ll test it.”

“One more thing.” Pale told him about Helix’s place being under surveillance, potentially even when Shard had been there.

Shard frowned. “You think they were after me? Well, I don’t remember being spit on.”

“Anything else you can think of?” Piper said. “Any other possible transfer?”

“Jeeze, now I’m kind of glad that mare at the convention shot me down,” Shard grumbled. “No, I can’t think of any.”

“We’re still gathering new information on these…’Weeds,’” said Piper. He glanced between the two of them. “I want you both to be careful for the next month.”

Pale nodded. She’d been careful for as long as she could remember. She wasn’t infected yet, was she? But she took Piper’s meaning. This was uncharted territory and a single mistake could be her - and their - last.

Shard went to his lab. Piper turned to the map, Pale joining him.

“You were there,” said Piper. “I only watched. What do you make of it?”

“I can’t figure out why they would do it, intentionally spreading the Blight.” Pale shook her head.

“There is a lot of work to be done, and many questions to answer. We must carefully plan our next move,” said Piper. “Facts are essential, but what do your instincts tell you?”

Pale considered it. “Manehattan. With everything else, it just feels like their hub. I got the sense they were locals.”

Piper nodded. “Then we will go to Manehattan.”

Pale agreed with that. Much as she wanted to go immediately, her gear and her body needed attention. She turned to go.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Piper softly.

Pale paused for a long moment. She wanted to turn around, she wanted to say something, but instead she just nodded in acknowledgement, and left the room.