Mina’s grinning, toothy smile appeared in front of her out of the darkness. The smokey blackness parted and her flat mane and slightly-sharp teeth filled Applejack’s vision. She felt strong hooves take hold of her, and then a rushing feeling. Wind whipped at her mane and stung her cheeks, and then… silence.
The rush of blood to her head cleared, and Applejack’s vision slowly returned. She was standing in a forest, on flat land. Not too far away was a cloud of smoke rising up out of the forest. Her hat was next to her, held out to her by Mina, who’s mane was now fluffy again.
“Wha—” Applejack stammered in confusion. “Why… the hay did you save me? And how? What was that?”
When Applejack didn’t immediately grab her hat, Mina put it on her head and smiled brightly, teeth no longer appearing sharp. “Because the Dark Lord, while super-duper evil and nasty, is kind of dumb sometimes. Taking over your body in a falling train?” Mina waved a hoof dismissively. “Pfft! Bad idea!”
“But… how did you do that?”
Mina tilted her head in thought for a moment, then giggled and spoke in an imperious, memorized or mimicked tone. “Through the Dark Lord, all things are possible. By his hoof, time is frayed. By his teeth, space is rent. By his breath, speed is given. By his body, the weak are carried. By his gaze, death is delivered.”
“And you just used that to save his vessel, which would be me?”
“Of course, silly! There’s no point in helping him into this world if the vessel’s just gonna die immediately. You need to be kept in perfect condition. Like an egg, before you crack it.”
Applejack leaned back and flopped onto the cold ground. “I’m just an egg, huh?”
“Or a chrysalis, if you like that word better. Cocoon, chrysalis, egg, unbaked batter, unrisen dough, unpopped corn, un—”
“I get it, thanks.” Applejack pulled herself back to her hooves and adjusted her hat. She looked at the dark cloud floating over the forest where the train had fallen. “I guess it’s time to get moving again, huh?”
“You can wait for Benebarriz if you want. He’d be happy about that.”
“You would be too, huh?”
Mina just shrugged. “I don’t care one way or the other! I’m just here for fun.”
“Just for fun, huh? Sure doesn’t seem that way, what with the way you keep going nuts.”
“Oh, Jack. I don’t go nuts, I just get earnest.”
“Earnest to see me die.”
“That’s just not true, you know.”
“Then why’d you send me into the train? You knew it was gonna fall.”
“Of course! Benebarriz was coming, and it was easier to isolate you that way.”
“Your Dark Lord could have done his own dirty work.”
“You would have run down the tracks with all the other ponies if I’d left you up there, then you would have been rescued by another train, then we would have had to do this song and dance alllll over again. That’s a drag. You can’t have a party the same way twice in a row, it’s tacky.”
Applejack stood and started plodding away into the dark woods. The moon was up and the stars were twinkling in the sky, but as the canopy spread over their heads, it became oppressively dark in the forest.
Not to mention cold. Applejack was soon shivering, wishing she had grabbed a blanket or two from the suitcase before it had all fallen and been destroyed.
“You look cold.”
“I am c-cold.” Appelejack’s teeth chattered.
“You want a spare cloak?”
“You h-h-have one?”
“I always carry a spare just in case. You never know when you’ll get a juice stain on your good cloak and have to put on the ratty one.” She pulled a full-on cultist cloak out of her mane somehow. “Buuuuut, since my entire cult is dead, I guess you can have it.”
Applejack took it and quickly slipped it on. It was delightfully warm and quite cozy. Despite the connotations of wearing it and the strange rituals it had seen, she didn’t care. They were in the middle of the woods in the middle of the mountains, and survival was the first order of business right now.
Now that she wasn’t going to die of cold, Applejack was able to pick a path through the forest a little bit easier. There were crags and cliffs and crevices and boulders and who knows what else around them, and trying to travel at night was an exercise in danger, but she couldn’t stop to rest or start a fire with Mina’s Dark Lord right behind her.
“Don’t suppose you can tell me how fast your Dark Lord can travel, Mina?”
“Oh, it comes and goes. Sometimes he’s quick, sometimes he’s slow. He really likes enclosed spaces for some reason.” Mina leaned in close and whispered loudly. “I think he likes the way they make his singing sound.”
Applejack couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Seriously?”
Mina just smiled and bounced along next to her. “Well, why else would he spend so much time inside them? Unfortunately his singing usually breaks everything so he has to keep moving.”
“Is that why the singing stones stop him?”
“Search me. I don’t worry about how to stop him. That was never in our plans.”
“Makes sense.”
“Why’d you pick a cult to join, of all things?”
“Because I found them first.”
“Y’all don’t need to join the first group you find, you know.”
“Oh, I know, but no one else was joining them. It had been years, so I thought, ‘let’s throw them a bone, they’re trying!’ You need to reward effort sometimes.”
“Questionable logic when it comes to world-ending groups, but okay. Y’all just seem too cheerful for it, half the time.”
“What do you mean, ‘half the time’?”
Applejack waved a hoof. “You know… that… earnest… thing.”
“Ohhhhhh!”
Mina stared at Applejack a moment, then shuffled away into the darkness.
“Mina?”
She could hear hoofsteps crackling on fallen branches and dry leaves around her in the dark. Wherever Mina had gone, she was circling around Applejack, back and forth.
“Mina what are you doing? I’m sorry I brought it up. Y’all come out now.”
Applejack whipped her head around, looking for the mare, only to come face-to-face with the pointy-toothed, flat-maned, crazy-eyed Mina! She yelped in fear.
Mina held something up and it burst into flame. She was holding a torch, the fire crackling in the darkness. She smiled wider, wider, and wider still, until her smile reached too far back on both cheeks. Applejack backpedaled away and Mina stalked after her.
“Because, Jack. Half the time ponies need encouragement to keep going, and the other half, they need…” Mina held the torch up to a nearby tree, the dry branches caught fire. “…incentive.”
She charged at Applejack, waving the torch and cackling. Applejack turned and ran.
The darkness was a barrier, but as the cold and dry wood behind her blazed up, Applejack could see shapes and edges in the darkness. Mina’s hooting behind her spurred her onward and she dove over boulders, leapt over crags, and skirted along the edges of short cliffs as the other mare hounded her across the mountains, setting things alight as she went.
As Applejack ran, she could hear singing coming from somewhere. At first, she thought it was the Dark Lord of Mina’s coming after her, but this singing wasn’t deep and terrible, it was melodious, and a low alto instead of a rumbling bass. It was like the sound in her dream that had come from the three stones. Were those the singing stones? Were they near?
The trees were blocking her vision of everything but what was immediately in front of her, and it was all she could do to keep herself from getting hurt as she ran, but Applejack picked a direction that went uphill and scrambled up the rocky cliff, hunting for a good vantage point.
The snapping pursuit of Mina followed her up, up, and up the rocky bluff until she burst out of the trees and onto the top of the hill. She was greeted by a pink, fluffy face.
“Hiya, Jack!”
“Gyaaaaah!” Applejack swung a hoof and struck Mina in the face, the pink mare rolled backward and back to standing. Her expression hadn’t changed but now there was blood streaming from her broken nose.
Mina walked back up to Applejack and grabbed her around the withers, then tugged her out of the tree-line and onto the rocky cliff. “Calm down, Jack. Look at this. Lookie lookie lookie.” She pulled her out to the edge and together they stared out across the craggy landscape.
Applejack was terrified of what Mina was planning, but the view blew that out of her mind. Ahead of them, at the bottom of the craggy mountains, in a valley covered by trees, floated three stone monoliths. One was glowing blue at the top, another red, and the third one green. The music Applejack was hearing seemed to be coming from them, washing over her and drowning most of the Dark Lord’s music out.
“Looks like you found them, Jack!” Mina said with a smile.
“I guess I did… but what do I do with ‘em? What are they, even? How and why are they floating?”
“I don’t know, but you really need to calm down. I mean, a single second of ANGER and you freak out.” Mina’s mane drooped at the word ‘anger’ and her eyes widened. Applejack jumped away out of Mina’s grip, but she did nothing, and her mane went fluffy again immediately.
“Y’all need to stop doin’ that!” Applejack said with a hoof pressed to her chest.
“I don’t know what you mean, but if you’re curious about the singing stones, I don’t know what you’d have to do, either. Like I said, we were in the business of summoning evil, not banishing it.”
“That ain’t very helpful.”
“You’re welcome!”
Applejack made a straight face and looked back at the trees they had come out of. The Dark Lord’s shadow was creeping through the trees, making the darkness under the canopy even more bleak and oppressive than it already was. Applejack couldn’t wait. She scrambled down from the bluff and into the trees, making her way down into the valley below.
Mina leaped down after Applejack, bounding along behind, and the two crawled through trees, over rocks, down toward the stones. The light coming from them gave them enough illumination to see by, but it was still difficult to traverse because of all the drop-offs and rocks blocking the path. Eventually, they looked up and could see the singing stones above them.
“What the hay? How am I supposed to do anything with them if they’re up there and I’m down here?”
Mina just shrugged and wandered around in circles, nose to the ground as she sniffed about for some reason Applejack didn’t understand. Applejack stood directly underneath the three spinning stones, watching them orbit above her.
The lights on top of the stones, from this vantage point, didn’t seem to be attached to the monoliths. They glowed and pulsed while the music faded out, then back in, humming and singing along with the glowing of the lights.
Applejack felt something itching on her face and reached up to scratch. She watched a while longer, then felt another itch. She scratched that and stared up at the monoliths.
Dark Lord Beanburies or whatever his name was, was coming up behind her fast, and the only hope she’d possibly imagined would have been these singing stones, but now that she was here, there was nothing going on with them that she could fathom would be any help in getting her free of him. Was there some incantation or something?
Finally, Applejack had had enough. “Hey! Rocks! I got a problem comin’ up behind me real quick, and I was told you’d be able to help me! What am I supposed to do?” She waved a hoof back from where she had come, where the Dark Lord’s angry, roiling cloud of black crawled down the valley.
Applejack did a double take. The black cloud of the Dark Lord wasn’t just coming in from one side—it was coming in from all sides! The mountain peaks were buried under an encroaching wall of blackness that covered everything; trees, rocks, crags, peaks, and was even rolling overhead to blot out the stars.
“Mina, what the hay is going on?” Applejack turned to find Mina and yelped when she saw the flat-maned pink mare sitting directly behind her. She had a stern look on her face.
“The Dark Lord isn’t happy with the way you’ve kept running from him, Jack,” Mina said. She reached up to Applejack, who only weakly resisted her grip. She pulled her in tight for a hug, then started humming in her ear. It was the same, alien tune the Dark Lord was singing; deep, sonorous, and inevitable.
Applejack felt tired. Running all night, barely any sleep followed by a train crash, then a fall down a mountain followed by even more running through the woods. It would have been so easy to just give up and let Mina have her way. Just let the Dark Lord do whatever, take over her body, and then screw everypony else, at least she’d be able to rest.
A higher, more pleasant tune broke through Applejack’s thoughts. It burned away the fog Mina’s humming was drawing over her mind and cleared away the cobwebs. She was still exhausted, but now she was thinking more clearly. She pushed Mina away with some difficulty, but the mare didn’t stop her, she just looked at her, confused.
“Jack, why are you still trying so hard?”
Applejack stumbled away from Mina. The singing between the stones and the darkness were clashing in her mind, confusing her and muddling her thoughts until she didn’t know what she was doing.
She turned away from Mina and stumbled. Dimly, she realized her hat had fallen off. She tasted blood, and she felt a pain in her mouth. She dabbed a hoof to her tongue and pulled away blood. She must have bit it somehow in her confusion. She tried to take a step but fell over. More pain flared up in her mouth.
She spat. Red came out.
“Ah’m… tryin’ t’live, Meenuh,” she slurred. “Dun wanna be a Dark Lord.”
Mina hovered on the edges of Applejack’s vision. She seemed to be on both sides at the same time, just on the edge of her sight. Applejack’s head swayed as she tried to follow her, but she was unable to keep her head steady, and she wobbled back and forth as she tried to get back up.
“Jack, you wouldn’t be the Dark Lord. You’d be dead. You’ll get to rest, and the Dark Lord will do whatever he wants. You can stop worrying. It’s easy. It’s simple. It’s no work on your part.”
Mina’s voice was low and rumbling. It fit the cadence of the Dark Lord, meshing with it and burrowing into her ears. Applejack’s face felt like it was on fire. She rubbed a clumsy hoof over her muzzle, trying to scrape it off.
“I dun wan dis. Aye dun like dis.” Her words were getting harder to say, her tongue fat and obstructive in her mouth. She bit it again and grumbled. She grabbed it with her hooves and tried to pull the stupid thing out, so it wouldn’t get bit again.
“Come with me, Jack. Come away from here and come to the shadows. The cult loved me, Jack. They wanted me there, and I want you there.” She pointed at the edge of the valley. Applejack’s head swayed, but she let go of her tongue and looked.
Shadows had gathered at the edge of the valley, melding with the trees a short distance away from the singing stones that floated above.
Had they stopped singing? Applejack couldn’t hear them anymore.
Mina grabbed her by the hoof and tugged. Her flat mane sat against her head, and her mad eyes stared into Applejack’s, urging her on. For a split second, Applejack swore she could see Mina with her fluffy mane. The big, happy blue eyes shook her head and she giggled and pointed up. She put a hoof to her mouth in a shushing motion. Then she was gone, and the flat-maned Mina was all she could see. Applejack stumbled under Mina’s tugging, but slowly and softly, tried to hum.
It was clumsy, and she almost choked on her tongue, but Applejack began to sing along with the faint song she remembered from her dream. She felt her hooves moving, but soon there was nothing. No feeling whatsoever, and she found herself in a wide-open landscape again with the cloud of darkness behind her and the three floating stones and their colors in the distance. Applejack was in the middle, with Mina at her side.
“What… what’s happening?” Mina said. Her mane was flat, with the faintest hint of a curl at the base. She laughed nervously.
“Aye dunno, but aye wanna goe tha’way,” Applejack mumbled. She fell into Mina and pointed at the floating stones. Upon hearing her decision, the dark clouds roiled and surged forward.
“Wait, why are you telling me?” Mina asked, confused.
“Aye c’n burley think, tek me thur, pleez… Mina…” Applejack’s weight all dropped onto Mina. The pink mare was left with a comatose Jack and the dark cloud of her lord behind her.
She wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hoof, the Dark Lord was waiting for her to deliver on her promise as a cultist, but Jack trusted her enough to help?
Why?
She’d done nothing but betray her and sabotage her. She was even the cause of her problems, yet Jack wanted her help? Was she crazy?
Mina looked at the cloud, then at the stones, and picked up Jack onto her back. Her mane drooped a little bit more as she turned to face the dark clouds, and she took a step toward it.
“Thenks, Mina,” Jack mumbled, “Yer a good fren.”
Mina shivered. Her mane fluffed once, then went flat, then fluffed again. She’d never had a real friend before. Just ponies who tolerated her. The cultists only wanted her around because she was a warm body that could fill out their needed quota. They didn’t even remember her name, and they hadn’t waited to eat the snacks she’d ordered from Jack before killing themselves! They didn’t truly appreciate her and her efforts to make them happy!
Mina set her jaw, her mane exploded up to fluff, and she turned and ran for the stones!
The dark cloud surged after her across the black and blasted landscape. Her hooves pounded against the hard, dark ground, but it was thankfully flat. The cloud roiled, the lights beckoned, and Mina ran.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this! I don’t even like you! It would be so easy to just let Equestria be devoured in darkness!”
Jack said nothing. She just laid there, limp and unresponsive, trusting Mina to take her where she wanted to go.
Mina gritted her teeth and charged forward, but no matter how hard she ran, the stones didn’t appear to be getting any closer. She could hear their singing, but the Dark Lord’s deep voice nearly drowned them out, and he was gaining on her.
“Come on! I gave up my life as a cultist to try to help Jack, why aren’t you getting closer!”
There was a loud chime, and Mina saw the blue light flash. There was a higher chime, and the green light flashed. Then the red light flashed, and another chime happened, harmoniously melding with the others.
Panting as she ran, Mina followed along, humming the three notes, one after the other. She could feel a tingling in her hind hooves and hear the singing of the Dark Lord behind her, but she didn’t look. She hummed the final note and tripped when the landscape suddenly shifted around her.
She found herself underneath the stones, the Dark Lord’s cloud roiling around outside of them, and the lights above shone down. There was a bright glow, red, blue, and green, that grew in intensity until it went entirely white, and Mina could see nothing more.
When Applejack opened her eyes, they were in the valley in the mountains. It was daylight, and the stones that had been floating the night before, were craggy boulders on all sides of them. Mina was asleep on the ground next to her, her mane poofy, and her cloak laid over the both of them.
“Mina?”
Mina opened her eyes. “Jack? Good morning. You’re still you, I see.”
“I am. What happened?”
Mina sighed. “I was a bad cultist, I guess.”
“Well, you were a good friend. I’m grateful to you, and I promise I won’t devour you or Equestria as thanks.”
“I guess I should take that as a compliment. I still think it might be fun to see how getting devoured feels.”
Applejack cringed. “I’d prefer you didn’t. At least wait until I’m dead.” She looked around. “Don’t suppose you know how to get home from here?”
“I have no idea!”
“Well, no better way to find it than to start walkin’. You can tell me more about yourself now that I know you ain’t out to kill me. You wanna hear about the time I ate so many apple fritters I couldn’t walk?”
“I once ate six cakes and had the same! What a coincidence!” They laughed. Mina’s mane flattened for just a moment, but neither pony noticed.
The End.