As the moon stayed above Ponyville—bringing upon the village its cold and dim light—the windows glimmered a soft white.
Well, some of the windows.
A lot of them were covered with wooden boards nailed to the frames—even then, about a dozen of them lay about unhinged and abandoned on the ground, the tips of their nails glimmering the moonlight, too, if only subtly, as they rested beneath empty timber squares and rectangles harboring sharp remnants of glass sticking out.
Lights did emanate from inside several houses, although only two of them had their light bulbs on. The rest had kerosene lamps or candles as their illumination this night, giving the town a dull odor of smoke, burning smoke.
On some roofs, holes showing the wooden frameworks holding the hay up.
The trees had shed most of their leaves, scarce a green color left on a hoofful of branches. Weeds had sprouted among the once-fresh, once-trimmed grass.
In Ponyville.
The cloaked stranger trotted up to a duo of guards standing by the door of a house with its lights on.
Tapped them on their shoulders.
They spun around. "Who's there?!" they both yelled.
The stranger gave them a scroll. "Read this. Approved by Princess Celestia herself."
Both of them lit up their horns, opened the scroll, and read it.
The first guard poked his buddy on the head. "Knock the door. See if Blossom Delight and the other florists are there."
His buddy nodded and knocked the door.
The stranger smiled. "Thank you very much."
She galloped away.
"Open up!" the second guard yelled. "We're not going to hurt you! We'll just have a nice and honest chat about something and that's gonna be all!"
"Don't make it sound suspicious, Civilic!" the first guard said, annoyed. "They'll think we're being sarcastic!"
"What do you know about sarcasm, Peeler?" Civilic responded, looking at him up and down. "You're so upfront about everything, you'd think cats and dogs are really falling from the sky."
"Sarcasm and metaphors are different things!" Peeler shouted before grunting and turning his head in a bout of pain. "Ugh! You're going to get the both of us killed in record time if you keep acting like this."
"I've been acting like that?" Civilic repeated, scratching his neck. "Really? Are you going to say that?" He rolled his eyes then turned to the door—knocked it again. "Hey! What's the hold up?!"
Peeler grabbed his buddy and turned him around. "We may be in a half-empty village in the middle of nowhere—"
"It's just like a few kilometers away from Canterlot—"
"Canterlot is in the middle of nowhere!" Peeler yelled. "We're not surrounded by barracks, forts, garrisons, bases—no, not even another big city. It's just this little, teeny tiny town and grass for all the eye can see!" He ended it by throwing his hoof about.
Civilic raised a foreleg, held his buddy on the shoulder. "Woah! Calm down! Let's look on the bright side, OK? Canterlot's safe—it's not the best right now, but it's safe. The Princesses are not dead, the Captain's not dead, and I still can't believe that we have less than ten civilian casualties."
Peeler leaned on the house's front wall. "Yeah, ten plus the number of our casualties." He sighed, shaking his head in disdain. "You know what? I may be glad that only seven non-combatants died, but...it felt like forever!"
"Good thing you got those spare arrows, huh?" Civilic said, a smile creeping up on his face.
Peeler curled his lips up. "Got out of this alive only to die tomorrow. I'm amazed with how we're still here...and we're, what, the second batch since it began? I'm less than thirty, but I already feel old."
Civilic sighed, leaning on the wall with him. "Yeah. Me, too."
Silence under the night, silence by the dirt and stone path.
"So," Peeler began, "what do you think about Spearhead's surprise news ten minutes ago?"
"About how we're at war with Sombra and Chrysalis now?" Civilic said. "I don't know. Scared? Afraid? My Dad's seen a few changeling raiders in his day, and those stories...I know they're true, that they can shapeshift and, if you place a changeling and a pony together, you can't tell the two apart...it's...it's..."
"Bizzare," Peeler suggested with another shake of his head. "Now what? Half of us might get shuffled to the Badlands Front, we'll stay there and fight for a few days, and then we'll get sabotaged by changelings who captured our friends when we weren't looking. If that's not cheating, then I don't know what is."
"Did Sunburst and his team say anything about it?" Civilic asked. "I remember them saying something about a changeling potion."
"If they can mass-produce it, then bring it on. If not, don't bother."
Silence again.
Lights still on inside the house.
"They're not out yet?" Peeler said, curious and looking at the window to his right. "Civilic, give them a final warning."
Civilic nodded, tilted his helmet straight, and knocked the door loud and clear. "Good evening! Please open up this door, or we will break it down! This is the E.U.P. Guard at your door!"
Whispers, words bouncing around from within.
Hoofsteps.
"What took them so long?" Peeler asked, getting back on his four hooves and trotting to the door.
Civilic shrugged his shoulders. "Let's find out."
As they stood by at the front door.
It opened.
A violet blue unicorn held the door. Behind her in the hallway were three more mares, these ones Earth ponies.
Civilic coughed. "Under orders from the Princess's Research Division, you shall transfer to your new living quarters in Canterlot to continue your work."
Blossom Delight, the unicorn before them, gasped. "Transfer?!"
Her friends gasped. "What are we going to do?" asked the red-maned one.
"Didn't you just hear it?" Civilic said, tougher. "You'll continue your work—your magic work, you know, with flowers and spells and trying to make potions for the cause."
Blossom Delight pressed her wrist.
Felt her heartbeat rising.
"I didn't receive letters!" she countered, shouting at them with narrowed eyes. "I wasn't notified at all by them, not even a single representative! They should've asked if we were OK with it, not put us in without a word at all!"
"That's not how it works now, ma'am," Civilic said. "It's either you obey or we'll actually call in a Research Division representative to tell you that this isn't a joke."
"But, Ponyville..." she sighed—"it's my home! It's where I was born, grew up in—at least let me work here and not over there!"
"You can take trips back home during your free time."
"It's not the same!" Blossom Delight yelled, standing up against him, stepping forward.
Civilic stepping backward. On him, an appalled face, looking at the courageous mare.
Stepping outside.
"Ponyville is where my friends live, where my family lives, where all of us live in harmony! It may be a small town to you, but I'm proud of it, anyway! I won't budge from this spot, even if you have to dig the ground I'm standing on!"
"Then, that means we'll shovel the spot you're standing on and carry you there," Civilic pointed out.
Blossom Delight looked surprised. "What? No!"
Peeler pulled out a shovel. "I can start right now, ma'am."
"What?!"
As the two guards escorted the four mares out—Blossom Delight being carried on the spot of ground now dug up and levitated—a patchy colt galloped past them.
"Don't cause any trouble!" Peeler shouted at him.
But, the colt did not listen nor did he pay attention to the command.
Instead, he ran.
Past the discarded homes, past the barricaded windows, past the clumps of fallen hay, past the infesting weeds and the dying trees, past the copses of more dying trees, past the metal entrance gleaming under the moonlight.
Under the night, he ran.
Past the well, past the stacks of barrels, past the big barn doors, past the heaps of crates under bright industrial lights.
Clangs, whistles, bangs whizzing around his ears.
Past the boxes of fresh apples, past the conveyor belts and their speeding cans, past the little wooden barrier separating work areas with their hay floors, past Big McIntosh reading some instructions by the conveyor belt.
Approached Applejack in full uniform—gray green overalls, hairnet on both her mane and her tail, tied up cap of the same drab color, and surgical mask covering her mouth and nose—busy with holding a lever and watching the amount oc rushed apples pouring into each passing can.
The colt looked up to her. "Applejack!"
Applejack turned round to him—surprised. "What're ya' doin' here, Pipsqueak?! This isn't a safe place for you!"
"Is Apple Bloom and Scootaloo at the clubhouse?!" he yelled.
Applejack nodded. "Yeah! They're there! Now, get outta' here before you get hurt!"
And, Pipsqueak ran back into the night and out of the barn.
Or the factory. It was getting hard to tell.
Pipsqueak ran.
Past the apple trees, the bushes.
On the wide fields of grass.
Then, there it was, at the huge apple tree.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse, still clean and tidy, now with their lights on, too, squinting past the closed windows.
Pipsqueak ran up the blue ramps to the top, to the balcony, to the door.
Knocked on it.
"Apple Bloom, Scootaloo!" he shouted. "Are you in there?!"
Hoofsteps.
Door opened.
Pulled inside.
Pipsqueak's eyes twirling around, dizzy—throbbing, hurt.
Helped up by Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, then stood on the wooden floor.
On its nailed and painted planks, under the gloomy glow of two lanterns hanging overhead.
Their faces glistening in stifled light.
"What's going on, Pipsqueak?" Scootaloo asked, putting down a book entitled "The Heart of War: Strategies and Tactics".
"Yeah, what's goin' on?" Apple Bloom repeated, lifting a hoof to her forehead. "This isn't your normal self!"
Pipsqueak, huffing fast—"I got bad news from an old friend who just escaped the Grittish Isles!"
"Just escaped?" Apple Bloom said again, withdrawing a little. "That doesn't sound good."
Pipsqueak closed his eyes. With a burst of breath:
"They blew up the Isles!"
The two fillies gulped.
"Yer' sure this isn't a trick?" Apple Bloom asked, rapid and unnerved. "He could be exaggeratin'—"
"Why would he?!" he yelled, flailing his hooves about. "He brought me to his family who barely escaped as well—his friends and strangers, too! He stopped by here to tell me before they moved on South to Lease County! They...they got on the last ship before it exploded—it sunk, and it's not on the map anymore and my parents...they were there, to get the rest of our things and move our relatives here, too, but..."
Scootaloo patted him on the head, faced Apple Bloom. "I don't like where this is going."
Pipsqueak rubbed his eyes. Sniffled, blubbering.
He cried out:
"I'm alone!"
Looked at his short white hooves.
"My mother and father—they didn't make it in time...my old friends back in Trottingham..."
Heaving out air, sweaty, each breath louder than the last.
Scootaloo felt a tear going down. "Nothing's left?"
"No one's left! It's all gone!"
Apple Bloom's eyes filled up with tears, seeing this colt collapsing—losing it.
"I-I'm...s-sorry for..." and Scootaloo breathed out, sniffling as well.
"I...I need a place to stay!" Pipsqueak's eyes darted back and forth. "H-How will I take care of myself in the h-house? It's j-just me...just me...."
Leaned on the wall, resting his head there.
Moaning, banging on the wall with his hooves.
Scootaloo trotted to his side. "What about you have a sleepover with us, right here in the clubhouse?"
Apple Bloom nodded, a smile returning. "I guess it'd be fine for tonight, to keep you OK."
Pipsqueak opened his reddened eyes, showed his soaked face to them. "Y-You...you'll let me sleep here?"
"Mm-hmm!" Scootaloo took out a sleeping bag from the cabinet. "You can't just go outside, especially right now, so it's best you stay here anyway. We'll see what we can do tomorrow."
Apple Bloom placed a hoof on his shoulder. "We're awfully sorry f-for what just happened. I...I lost my Mom an' Dad, too, early on—"
"But, they were supposed to live!" Pipsqueak shouted. "They were supposed to be alive! They're supposed to come back so I could see them, help me out, tell me this and love me—"
Stopped.
Trembling.
Went down on his knees.
Tried to speak.
Threw himself to the floor.
Trashing about.
Wailing, weeping.
Under that gloomy glow, that faint glistening.
Tears twinkling.
Grief.
Pipsqueak opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him.
Windows opened, letting in a chilling breeze.
Gray, cloudy skies.
Cold.
Felt the blanket, the pillow.
"Pipsqueak, you're awake," he heard Apple Bloom say, hearing her approach.
Saw her face lean into view.
"A-Are you OK?"
Pipsqueak sighed. "I...I-I don't know..."
Scootaloo's face leaned into view as well, sporting a distressed expression. "Is there anything we could do to help you?"
Pipsqueak shook his head. "I still don't know..."
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other.
Wearing more than frowns.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders—or, rather, two of them—walked with a sullen, dour Pipsqueak and an Applejack without her mask but still in uniform. They passed by abandoned homes and stores which, under the daylight, took off all their mystery and replaced it with vacant misery, the windows laying out half-devastated rooms with nobody to inhabit them, nobody to give them a semblance of life and activity.
Another wooden board fell to the ground with a whack.
Only the gliding wind and the rustle of drifting leaves.
"I'm not gonna mince words here, Pipsqueak," Applejack said, turning up arid dust and dry dirt. "Yer' gonna have a hard time if you don't get yer'self somepony to watch over you. A colt like you can't make it on his own past Ponyville, not without serious support."
"So, what's y-your plan?" Pipsqueak asked, his voice still burdened with a lumpy throat.
Applejack paused in thought. "We've got two options. The first one's stayin' here with the Crusaders at the clubhouse. Bring your stuff from yer' home an' haul it over there—you'll be easy pickin' for enemy scouts out here. If it's too cramped in there, I'll see if I could build another treehouse nearby."
"But, what's the second option?" Apple Bloom asked.
Applejack looked away, seeing only the lonesome path before them. "The second option is to set yer'self up for adoption."
Scootaloo stopped, throwing up more dirt. "Wait, what?!"
"Pipsqueak can't move away!" Apple Bloom said, about to plead. "He's a good pony!"
"And I agree with them!" Pipsqueak declared, raising his voice.
"I know," Applejack replied, putting a hoof on his head and rustling his mane. "But, if you can't live safe here, you got to go for yer' own good, as much as all of us want you to stay." A pause as they moved along. "You said you have friends an' extended fam'ly seekin' shelter in Lease. Am I right?"
Pipsqueak nodded.
"Better be prepared. If Ponyville gets ransacked by Crystals, you gotta have yer' backpacks and follow the trainline all the way to Lease, especially if yer' alone. Once you're there, you're home free."
"But," Pipsqueak replied, slow and drawling, "it won't be the same as my home...here."
Bent his head down.
Seeing only gray and brown in this journey.
Applejack and the Crusaders sat by the river, by the tree.
There it streamed, rushing about. Its clear water coursing through, splashing against the stones only to gain speed and rush again. Fresh water, transparent—a treat to the eyes, a refreshment to parched throats, this river is. Was it able to induce ponies to sleep? That, too—at its quickest, its music was constant tranquil percussion, enough to soothe those at night to a peaceful slumber.
Above, that same gray and cloudy sky, altering the river to a color whiter than before.
Around them, stale grass losing their vibrant green, steadily replaced with a lackluster gray or brown.
Across the river, the town hall, that magnificent structure in few tatters. Windows were cracked, held up by yet more wooden boards nailed to the frames. Holes were few, too, but they were present in this grand building. Its flags continued to fly, but they seemed to fly too fast, as if they wanted to escape from their poles and truly fly away.
Away from Ponyville.
Away from here.
"Will we get out of it?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Out of what?" Applejack asked back.
She paused. "You just broke the news about the changelins' goin' to war over us last night. Pipsqueak told us the Grittish Isles were destroyed by the Crystals, and now...we're here."
Felt a tear fall.
"I miss the ol' days when we had school every weekday. We had good times with Miss Cheerilee, we learned an' played with our friends. I miss the ol' days when everypony was here, when nopony had to leave. Ponies like Lyra, Filthy Rich, Thunderlane, Rumble, Snips and Snails...then, there's Octavia, the Cakes, Bulk Biceps, Featherweight...we're now down to just the five of us at school: me, Scootaloo, Button Mash, Pipsqueak, and Silver Spoon. We don't even have classes for a full week sometime!"
Breathed in.
Paused.
"And, I m-miss...I miss Rarity and Sweetie Belle. To be honest with you, Applejack, they weren't so bad. I like fashion more than you do, but it's not just that. It's...well, without them, Ponyville just isn't the same." She shook her head, pouting. "It's not the same anymore! Equestria's not the same!"
"Hold up there, sugarcube," Applejack said, putting a hoof to her. "You better calm down and don't turn yourself up in a fit. We can't do anythin' about it—I'm not a Princess, so I can't do much other than to help out in the cause."
"But, we practic'ly gave up farmin'!" Apple Bloom exclaimed. "What happened to kickin' down apple trees together and just enjoyin' our work? What happened to pridin' ourselves in all-natural, quality produce?"
Applejack sighed again. "Those times ar' gone. These days, they don't care if we make the best apples in all of Equestria. What matters to them is that we make apples, period. Tryin' to save up costs, make everythin' efficient with machines—and, I admit, some machinery's fine, but too much of 'em and throwin' tradition out the door...it crushes my heart."
"Why don't you do something about it?!" Apple Bloom suggested—squealing, voice breaking in despair.
Scootaloo took a few steps away from them, avoiding the Apple ponies and clenching her jaw—afraid, hiding her uneasy hooves and wings.
"You're an honest pony, Applejack!" Apple Bloom shouted, pointing at her. "You're the loyalest of friends and the most dependable of ponies. I didn't think all of us would end up betrayin' the Apple family way...."
Applejack choked, clutched her head.
Paused.
Kept seeing the river, kept hearing the rushing river.
"It wasn't the mayor's fault," Applejack answered, quieter and weaker. "It wasn't the fault of those fancy ponies sellin' the fancy machines we have now."
"So, yer' saying that Sombra's responsible for turning Sweet Apple Acres into Sweet Apple Factory?"
Applejack sighed. "That is the truth."
Held up a hoof.
"Before you say I'm blamin' names...I don't think we could ever get by on our own. The Princesses want us to work as hard as we can to make sure we're still here and we're still fightin for our homes. These hooves, Apple Bloom?"
She held up her hooves, showing them to her.
"They can't beat the best cider squeezers, that's for sure."
Rested her face on her hooves.
Silence except for the rush of the river.
The wind.
"Apple Bloom?"
She looked up to Applejack.
Teary-eyed.
"I...I miss the ol' days, too."
Sniffed.
Still hearing the rush of the river.
"And, if there's one thing I could wish for so hard, so badly..."
The rush of the river.
As they sat on the grass under the gray cloudy sky, surrounded by abandoned homes and businesses, dying grass and trees.
"...I wish this war would end today."
Silence.
"But, you know it won't, Applejack," Apple Bloom said. "That's what makes you sad, isn't it? You know it won't...."
Applejack shook her head and sighed. "I know it won't."
The sisters wrapped an arm around each other, looking at the sky.
Scootaloo looking at them, sitting beside them there on the grass.
Looked up.
Saw a flock of birds.
Black crows cawing.