//------------------------------//
// White Chocolate 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"There I was, traveling in the company of a most intelligent mare named Sharpie," Gerardo narrated from the ground, drawing his crowd's rapt attention and many oohs and ahhs. "And we knew that the only course of action upon discovering the bomb threat was to go directly to Sosa! Of course, I didn't trust Selma with a single feather, so we made sure to keep our minds sharp and our brains focused on the true culprit. We couldn't get distracted, not for anything. But halfway through the flight, it started raining! Now, Ironridge weather is quite an impressive..."

Amber choked on her drink at the irony, made worse by its fizzy properties. "Are you okay?" Maple asked as she doubled over, coughing.

"Up my nose," Amber moaned, breathing through her mouth and rubbing her muzzle furiously with a hoof. "Bleh. Heeheehee..."

Starlight glanced at her in concern. "It wasn't that funny..."

Amber sat back, exhaling. "Well, he gets serious when there's real danger, right? I mean, of course you'd want to entertain your audience when you're telling them about it later. I don't know, I think goofy adventurers are funny."

Maple gritted her teeth. "...He doesn't. Not really. Honestly, I think Gerardo might have been the most stressful part of the trip for me. He wasn't, but he always says the wrong thing at the wrong time to make whatever just happened a dozen times worse."

Willow looked sadly at her, but didn't say anything.

"I shouldn't hold it against him," Maple sighed. "He's not malicious, just... dense. If anything, I might just be jealous that he managed to enjoy that whole thing. We spent so long dreaming about what Ironridge would be like, and I didn't get to experience any of it aside from tunnels and poverty and explosions and running around."

"Surely there were some good parts," Amber insisted, prodding Maple as she took another sip of her drink. "Sure, things were crazy, but what about before things got crazy?"

Maple gave her a flat stare. "We got off the ferry just before dawn, far enough east of the city that it could be concealed. We walked for a long time through a muddy, pathless forest, with me carrying one of Gerardo's heavy crates and getting sweaty, dirty, tired and maybe a little annoyed. Then we walked in on some bandits ambushing a trade cart on a road, and one shot me point-blank with an energy cannon."

Amber's jaw went slack, and even Willow gaped. Starlight nodded, confirming Maple's story as true.

"That's how I found out my cutie mark can store magic as well as physical things." Maple hung her head. "It's also how I found out Gerardo has a tendency to charge headfirst into trouble, even though Arambai had just told us to stay as far away from that as we could. But there was no time before things got crazy. After that, I climbed an entire mountain carrying his stupid crate, and only found out two days later that we could have gotten a cart to let him pull both of them. After that we went to a museum, but I was too tired to enjoy it and Gerardo was complaining about us needing to deliver his crates. When we actually did, he had us come along, even though I wanted to lie down in our hotel room and sleep, and then he got in trouble with a guard and got me arrested, tied up and left in a pitch-dark storage room inside a giant cave."

Willow's friend Juniper frowned. "I don't remember that part of his story," she remarked.

"Like Amber said, he's an entertainer," Maple admitted, slumping and putting her head in her hooves. "Nobody wants to listen to stories about him getting punched out by a hostage-taking unicorn."

Amber put a hoof on Maple's shoulders, looking grim. "I get it, Maple. You said it was bad, but I, uhh..."

Maple smiled feebly at her. "You thought I meant it triggered something from my past, but to a normal pony would have been just fine?"

Amber swallowed, nodding.

"It did that too."

If Amber and Willow hadn't had it covered, Starlight would have been at her side in an instant. She had a feeling she knew what was going to be talked about sooner or later.

"Sorry, girls," Maple sniffed. "I remembered the list, but I didn't get to do anything on it. I don't think I ever noticed Ironridge fashion, let alone got to try it on. I didn't read a single newer book. I don't know what they do for fun, though I did go to two bars... but both were just us sneaking around and looking for information. I rented a nice hotel room, but wound up sleeping in a cave anyway."

"No fancy restaurants?" Amber asked with a sad grin.

"None." Maple shook her head. "Most of the time we just ate stolen fruit from the Earth District."

Starlight frowned. "What about the breakfast Shinespark gave us?"

"Oh, that?" Maple blinked. "I forgot about that! That was delicious... I'd love to have a meal like that again. But we spent the entire time talking about bombs and trying to make decisions that would affect the lives of thousands of ponies, and most of the ponies who were there are dead now, including the chef."

Both of her friends held her tightly, Willow on the right and Amber on the left.

"I don't know how I'm doing as well as I am now," Maple admitted, wiping her eyes with a hoof. "For a while, I felt like I would die if I didn't get back here to you two, just from the stress. Or like I was already dead, and it wasn't even me that kept going. I should be a blubbering wreck, but I'm actually speaking in full sentences!" She gave a silly grin, eyes still watering with tears that threatened to spill over any second.

Amber squeezed her shoulder, returning a look of confidence. "We're proud of you, Maple. Sounds like you gave as good as you got, and now that it's over, you're still standing."

Maple sniffed wetly. "Barely. It's still hard to get my legs to work right. Gerardo's sword isn't fun to get stabbed with."

"She meant the other way, Maple," Willow hummed. "But we're glad you can overcome magical curses, too."

To the side, Cedar was sitting awkwardly, accompanied by a mare Starlight hadn't seen before with some portions of her anatomy very unusually sized. "Hey, ladies..." He coughed into a hoof. "Not to be an ungracious host, but this is a party, and you're kind of killing the mood." The curvy mare next to him nodded in agreement.

"Oh!" Maple jumped. "Sorry..."

"Actually," Starlight cut in, "do you have a room we could use? Private? There's a little more they need to talk about."

"There is?" Maple asked, looking confused. "I think I can enjoy this now. All I've been wanting is something to enjoy, anyway."

"White Chocolate," Starlight simply replied.

Maple slowly paled. "Oh, I forgot about her! We need to get back to the ship, and-!"

"She'll wait," Starlight insisted. "But you should tell Amber and especially Willow, or else I will, because we did bring her and she can't stay alone on the ship forever."

"Maple?" Amber pricked her ears in concern. "Who's White Chocolate?"

Maple took a deep breath. "She's..."





In an unused guest bedroom in Cedar's tower house, she finally exhaled. "She's the pony Faron asked us to go find. Remember at the dinner when I said we could leave, and he gave us an address and a message? White Chocolate is who we found."

Willow's breathing stilled, as if she had guessed what was coming next. Amber, however, didn't. "And who is she? His sister, or something?"

Maple shuddered, looking away. "His ex-wife. He left her behind when he ran away to Riverfall without so much as a goodbye."

Starlight felt the temperature in the room drop, even though it wasn't a revelation to her. Maple continued, in a hollow tone of voice: "She's... exactly where I would have been without you two. She never left her house, wondered why she hadn't been good enough, survived but didn't live. I saw so much of myself in her, I couldn't bear not to do anything about it."

"Her house was also flooded, so she had nowhere left to go," Starlight added. "When Maple was resting on the ship before we flew back here, I went and got her, since before all the dam stuff she said she wanted to bring her back to Riverfall."

Amber's eyes widened. "Wait, flew?"

Maple coughed. "That boat is an airship, but can we finish talking about White Chocolate first?"

"Of course," Willow gently replied, keeping her face expressionless.

"I think..." Maple sighed. "I don't know if I should tell you this, but you'll see it for yourself anyway. The thing I think pushed me over the edge in wanting to help her is what she looked like. Willow, she looks exactly like you, aside from wearing her mane a slightly different way. When I saw that, and I realized her connection with Faron, and yours, I thought maybe he... That you reminded him of her, and..." She folded her ears, laying her dusty head between her forehooves. "I don't know what's going to happen now," she admitted. "Just that I wanted to help her, and she needs it so much. She has a lot of foals. I don't remember how many, but it's more than ten, and she can't raise them right on her own. If we had left her in Ironridge..."

Then, Willow was holding her. "Has how I'll react to this been worrying you?"

"Y-Yes," Maple sniffed.

Willow stroked her back, like a mother holding a small foal, and Starlight couldn't help but wonder if that was where her cuddly inclinations came from. "Don't worry," Willow murmured. "I'm sure there are more things to know about what happened, but it sounds like you did the right thing. We'll see what happens to our families. How did he leave?"

Maple just shook, so Starlight stepped up. "Arambai had some friends set up this abandoned warehouse and tell a bunch of rumors about ponies going there and never returning," she explained. "It sounds weird, but Ironridge just works like that. So ponies who were unhappy enough with their lives to play with places that were supposed to make them disappear would go there, and then they'd actually disappear and get ferried here instead. Apparently they couldn't be honest about it because they didn't want anyone there to know about Riverfall. So after Faron lost his job when the boats stopped running, he got depressed and eventually wandered in there, and they just took him away."

"...Well." Amber shook her head, pursing her lips disapprovingly. "That's kind of rude. I guess that explains why all of Riverfall's Sosans are so melancholy all the time. Either they started off depressed, were basically foalnapped, or both. And Arambai did this?"

Starlight paused, unsure whether or not to defend anyone. "I don't know," she decided. "Ironridge was bad. He might have decided it was the best thing he could do. The pony who ran it all from Ironridge, Shinespark, is on the boat too, but she's sad also right now."

"Ironridge was very bad," Maple added, backing Starlight up. "Us arriving was what actually set things off, thanks to Gerardo's crates, but the city had been on a course for disaster ever since something bad happened twenty years ago. Back when we were trying to go, girls, there wasn't just trouble starting, there had been trouble for a decade."

Willow slowly breathed, still holding Maple. "Well, I'll have to talk to Faron now that I know that. It's his decision on whether he was wronged or did wrong, not mine. But would you mind taking us to meet White Chocolate?"

"Now?" Maple asked. "I was enjoying the celebration, even if Gerardo's stories were... you know."

Amber winked. "Nah, we can stay here as long as you want. Something tells me you won't feel the greatest with this fresh in your memory, though."

"No, you're right." Maple stood up, shaking her mane back into position. "Let's do it now. It's not too far to the ship. And after you've met her, you can talk to Faron, and figure out what to do, and I... don't know if I can watch that. Sorry..."

"Don't be," Willow said. "It sounds like all you've done is walked in on a bad situation and tried to help. Never be sorry for not being able to help enough. I can manage things from here."





Starlight didn't have to extend the gangplank, an action which probably would have overtaxed her horn, as Amber repeated her jump from the previous night and shoved it out for them. For all four of them, Starlight included, it was the first time since the battle exploring the ship properly under light of day, and she finally understood the mess the injured soldiers had left while using the ship as a transport.

Shinespark limped out of Starlight and Maple's old chosen room, opting not to fly, carrying a heavily-stained, wadded-up blanket that made Starlight glad she had slept in a different bed, her cast thunking like a peg-leg against the wooden floor. She stopped in the hallway, dull eyes meeting the four friends.

"Don't use that bed right now," she paused to say. "Mine is fine if you need one, but the mother has the only other clean one. Some of them, I'll need to replace entirely."

"You're cleaning?" Starlight asked, the others stepping back.

Shinespark shrugged. "I need something to do with myself. This ship is all I have left, so I might as well take care of it. And it needs a lot of fixing."

Starlight hung her head. "Sorry it got so beat up..."

"Being beat up is better than being gone." With that, Shinespark walked past them, heading for the top deck.

Willow followed her sadly with her gaze. "She's lost someone, hasn't she?"

"And something," Maple corrected. "All of Sosa. She was the pony everyone there counted on as a hero. She thought it was her responsibility to fix all of Ironridge, and..." She sighed. "I haven't been around her much to see how she's taking that failure, but I know I'd be devastated."

Amber nodded solemnly. "You know what would be great? If we could get you two, Gerardo, maybe her and that batpony all together tonight and just tell exactly what happened, without exaggerations and from as many perspectives as possible. What's her name, by the way?"

"Shinespark," Starlight said.

"Valey," Maple answered, speaking exactly over Starlight. Both blinked, turned to each other, and clarified.

Willow exhaled. "So she's also the one who sent Faron here."

"She looks even younger than me," Amber remarked, surprised. "And that was two years ago!"

Starlight nodded. "She's nineteen, and the reason she did everything she did anyway is because nobody else would."

Amber whistled, glancing at Willow. "Wow. That's the same age you were when you were wondering if you could look after us scamps on a trip to Ironridge, and we were both older than Starlight. And she's been looking out for an entire city?" She sounded impressed.

"Ironridge is weird like that." Maple smiled awkwardly. "Apparently, she'd been doing it for years, too. I hope we can get her to come and tell her side of things, because I don't think I'd do her story justice. Even after all that, I haven't really met her."

"Huh," Amber said as Starlight stopped in front of a door. "Hey, is this the one?"

Starlight nodded, then stepped aside, leaving Willow to open it.





Willow and White Chocolate stared at each other in silence.

All the foals scattered around the room who were old enough to play stopped what they were doing, looking up and tilting their heads and wondering why there was a second copy of their mother standing in the doorway. White Chocolate's ears were back, her eyes occasionally flitting to Maple standing in the background. Snow was oblivious, face covered by a magazine, until his ears eventually twitched from the sudden silence, and he looked up... and blinked in surprise. "Mom?" He glanced back and forth between them. "Do you have a sister?"

"That's a lot of foals," Amber mouthed to Starlight in the hallway, eyes wide as saucers.

"...Can I help you?" White Chocolate finally asked, looking as if she was struggling for something to say.

"Willow? White Chocolate. White Chocolate? Willow," Maple said, stepping forward alongside her friend. "We're at Riverfall now, so we wanted to talk about what to do with your foals... and Faron."

White Chocolate struggled to her hooves. "Do you think they'll be okay if I leave them here to go anywhere? I might need..."

"We've got them, Mom," Hayseed reassured. "Do what you need to. Right, Snow?"

"I can take care of myself," the colt mumbled, nose once again in a magazine.

Amber's eyes were fixed on White Chocolate's belly as she rose and stepped toward the door. "Is she having more? Why is she having more?" she whispered, still sounding incredulous. "Did she just...? Faron got here two years ago! You don't just go out looking when you've got that many already..."

White Chocolate overheard, ears going flat again, and Starlight kicked Amber in the leg to get her to knock it off. "Me and Amber can watch them," she volunteered, sensing that Maple and Willow wanted to go with White Chocolate back to Willow's house to meet Faron... or hopefully just to a less-crowded room.

"What?" Amber blinked, shaking her head and resetting her train of thought. "Me? I don't know, I'm hardly..."

Starlight kicked her again, giving a glare she very much hoped said 'trust me.'

Amber relented, slumping forward in the door as White Chocolate stepped out and the foals began to perk back up. She fixed on a look of grim determination that knew she was about to have a bad time, and grinned at the crowd. "Well, all right then. I guess me and Starlight are your new foalsitters while Mommy takes care of some family business. Now who wants to play a game?"