//------------------------------// // V. (A) Your Own Blood Tastes Sweetest After the Blows Stop // Story: Death of Mother Nature Suite // by Cynewulf //------------------------------// The road cut through two opposite bluffs and between them Applejack sat atop a rickety wooden bridge. She ate quietly, staring straight ahead into the little defile below. The wind whistled softly, what little wind there was, but beyond this there was no noise. The bridge had been painted once, she noted idly as she blinked uncaring into the depths. She'd noticed the flecks of white and pink, and wondered how long since it had been a bright, cheerful sight. More than that, she knew that paint meant settlement and civilization, or what counted for civilization, and that meant... a lot of things. It meant a lot of different and frankly terrifying possibilities. Applejack finished her apple, the last one in the pack, and let it slip off her hoof down, down to bounce on the rocks below. She thought there'd been a creek there once. You could see what was left of it in the putrid mud. Unbidden, memories of planting came to her in waves: the feeling of the sun on her back and the sweat pooling on her brow, the smell of the fecund earth and the taste of salt, the way the earth shifted beneath her hooves as they transplanted some poor tree. Civilization in the new world beyond the roaring of progress meant a few things. She imagined the possibilities branching out like a tree before her. A village would be dangerous in the way a feral dog was dangerous--very, but with clear limits. They would have little in the way of armament and experience, just wild swipes and desperate, empty stomachs to fuel their mad dash after any interloper. That was if the village hadn't been visited yet by an apostle, or by an auditor. An Apostle meant... it meant horrors. An auditor meant merely trouble. The old settlements were little more than fuel for the new world's nascent miseries. They were the kindling for a great engine beyond Progress, and each and every pony could be bent to serve the blind graspings of one of a dozen new gods. They had great, harsh names, but they had not always been so great, nor so insidious. Applejack stood, sighed, and readjusted her duster. She had to keep moving, danger or not. Staying still was far more dangerous, after all, at least while the sun was up. She liked the night more, anyhow. Nopony dared to come out at night, and she liked it that way. She supposed it could be one of the Front's recruiters had gotten to whatever village had so lovingly painted the bridge. If so, that meant less danger but more sorrow. Poor, stupid bastards. She hated them in the way one could only hate the bright hearted and the good-willed. It was the hate of a pony with three broken legs stuck down a well who listens to a companion talk about hope. The road that she followed now, as per her brother's old instructions, was winding in a way that had once probably been considered quaint and charming, weaving in and out of hills, but was now only a hazard. Applejack's mind did not wander. It simply split. One half stayed upon the road, and the other half was far, far away in the past, on a very different road. She saw-- "So why do we keep to the road, boss?" asked the upstart, fidgeting under his back. Applejack didn't acknowledge him, but Mac did. "Woods ain't right," he said. "You minimize your hoofprint in 'em, you understand? Lower your chances of runnin' into somethin' nasty in there if you don't go in." "Yeah, I hear you," continued the young stallion, who had not yet learned when to be still or quiet. "But ain't we sittin' ducks out here?" "You ain't wrong," Applejack muttered, and winced slightly as the skin on her leg caught on the barding. She needed to talk to Rarity or Rose about that when she got back. "But the woods aren't any safer. Die by blade or spell or get ate alive, them's your options. You're free to go the shorter way through the woods, but we won't wait on you too long." Duty along the roads was random, to a point. Some folks always went together. If there was one Apple, they always sent another, for instance. Everyone who wasn't already assigned to medical duty or other needful tasks was fair game. This time she and Mac had been given the dubious honor of showing the young Dollar Rain the ropes. Which was laughable. As if there were much else to teach aside from "don't stray too far" "run at the first sign of trouble" or "keep your head down". It was all bullshit, really, wasn't it? Patrolling, vigilance, caring, whatever words you wanted to attach to any of this expense of energy. Applejack pulled her down and put a bit too much force into her steps. Stars burn her alive and forsake her, but she was angry. She was pissed. Mac had asked her what about and she'd about torn his head off. What about? What not about? What in the whole grey and brown world, what in the whole world wasn't there to be angry about? She was angry about the heat and she was angry when the winter came and kept them huddled together like rats, all movement and confusion and misery in the dark hutches they'd dug beneath their own perfectly good houses getting as close to fires as they dared to simply prolong the inevitable suffered cold. The way her hooves ached after the road and they way they itched to be out again. The dead trees and the places out on the fence she couldn't fix cause they needed the timber for other things. The way the farmhouse creaked and groaned like an old mare. The way her stomach felt empty in the day time and unsettled in the night time. The dust storms that brought the poison that planted the seeds of cancer in you through your eyes and mouth and nose and cuts. The dead grass and the loose dust and the weight of the hoofblades on her front hooves and the wheeling spurs on her hind legs, the revolvin' five guns for her legs and the barding cobbled together by Rarity and her her sister. The failing crops and the already dead ones and the shallow foal's graves and the sky and the bitter alkaline taste on the air and really, Mac, what wasn't there to be mad about in such a world? The route they traveled was simple, really. Just make a loop of the old Filthy Rich road, the one he'd built to connect Ponyville to Ponyford years and years ago out of his own pocket. Princess had paid him back, but he'd hoofed the bill for a year. Halfway to Ponyford, then back home, and don't let anything alive over there see you. Simple. Easy? Easy as anything else, which meant it wasn't, but the chances of dying weren't much higher than one in ten and those were good odds. "'sides," Applejack grumbled. "You wanna go too far and stumble into town?" Dollar didn't have an answer to that, and that was just as well, because she wasn't terribly interested in his voice anymore, or ever really. She wasn't always this way. Mac had simply touched something he shouldn't have at the worst possible time. She was anxious and her blood was up. It would be fine. It would be fine. Nopony had seen anything come out of Ponyford in months, anyhow.